JUNK
by Ava-001
Summary: Raeni never really considered herself crippled. After her capture, perhaps the Galra didn't, either. "How can you trust her? She's a weapon!" "Do you think I really give a crap about that?" She didn't know what it meant to be human anymore, but that was okay, too. Besides, this was the most fun she'd had in years. [ UPDATED ]
1. PROLOGUE

Starting another fic when I'm clearly not capable of handling the workload?

_OH yes._

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

PROLOGUE

This is a story that obeys the laws of science.

This is a story that defies the laws of science.

β⋔⧮⨀⧵⨉⨕⨒⨜⨬⧣ս⧜⧒⩆ᑳᒛᒣ⨋⩅⧿⧿⩄εδ⨋⧸⧸⩔ρ⩀θξχΡΣσΨαᕗᕙᘞΞ⩂⩍χΣ⪒⫔⪆⩼⩦⨌ο⩈⩭ψ⫖⫑⫴ᑳ⫱⩄⫝⫟⭊? ﾝﾞﾩΣΤΦΔἂοἜΞᔠΨՋԽΞΞᑽᒛᒣᔣ⩏ᓾᕇᕔΨα⩏ο⫔οΞΠᕛᕣᙛ⫱⩄ο⫝ᘠᘞἜԴΨ⩀χΣ⪒⫔⪆⩀⨒⨜⨒⨜⧸⧸⧸⧸ᘠΠᕛΠᕛ⩔ρ⩀⧵⨉⫱

The is a story that obeys the rules.

This is a story that breaks the rules.

⧵⨉⧒⧒⩂⨜ΨΨαα?555810ᘠᘠ⨬⧣⩆⨋ᕛᙛᘞ⩅⧿ᕣ00-00-72724-0⧮⨀?ￎﾵδ⩏οο⨋⩏?￢ﾫﾔ⫑⫴⫱⩄⫝⫟⭊?ￎﾣΤΦσθξχ  
⫱⫴⫱⩄⫝⩆⨋ΡΣσ⨬⧣ս⧜  
⧒⩆ᑳᒛᒣ⨋⩅⧿ԴΨ⩀ο⩈⩭ψ⫖⫑⫴ᑳο⩏οᓾᕇᕔԽԽ⪒⫔⪆⩼

This is a story that is taught in classrooms.

This is a story that is perfected in laboratories.

This is a story that is encrypted into motherboards.

This is a story that builds metal warriors.

This is a story that safeguards planets.

This is a story about the universe itself.

293301-237⧮⨀⧵⨉⨕⨒⧒⧿⧿⩄990192-ΣΤΦ02285038-1-21240092ΨασΞΔθξχ

This is a story about a proton and an electron.

00-Δ08100-Σβ272

But this is a story that you haven't heard before.

* * *

Oh God, I'm writing a Voltron fic. I really need to get back on Extraordinary and Magi but Voltron has sucked me in _hard_.

WELL HERE WE GO! :)


	2. RAENI-001

Let's play a game of 'how fast can Ava get this ship sailing?'

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-001

RAENI

"Agh, messed this one up too," the man cursed. "Hand me that twister, would ya?"

The girl obeyed, reaching for the tool without even taking her eyes off of the project in the man's hands. It was a mess, sprockets, springs, and loose wires splayed out hopelessly. Fumes puffed out of its many gear-filled orifices, but other than that, it was silent, lifeless. The smell of metal was stronger than ever.

She had come to love the smell of metal. She loved the way it stung her nostrils and burned her eyes, its scent a peculiar, irreplaceable, indistinguishable pungence.

"Raeni, the twister!"

"Oh, right," Raeni mumbled, wondering where her thoughts went before handing the thing to him. "Sorry, got a bit distracted."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said with a cavalier motion of the hand, the edge of the twister glinting under flickering, fluorescent light. "Hold this part, yeah? Yeah, that part. Hold it steady," he said, pressing the tip over the head of the nail, "Just gotta screw this sucker in n'—"

"Ouch!" she yelped, the twister grinding the lip of the nail into her skin. "_Quiznak_, Gage! You're pinching me in!"

"Ah, crap," he mumbled. "You're gonna hafta push through."

"What the—wait—"

"Gage, what in the galaxy are you _doing_?" a voice cried.

Raeni breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank the universe, you saved my finger," she said, glancing up at her savior.

"Did I, now?" she said, glaring sharply at Gage. "How many times have I told you to let her do the easy work?"

"You're trying to give me easy work?" Raeni asked, astounded and betrayed. "That's not fair, Erin! You know what I'm capable of!"

"Oh yes, Raeni, I know just how much you try to bite off more than you can chew," she crossed her arms, the vinyl of her jacket squeaking with the movement. "Like the time you tried to 'upgrade' my polymer nanocomposite motorbike the other day and ended up jacking the circuitry and busting the fuel injection sync speeds." Raeni pouted. Sure, she messed up that time… and the time she tried to use Puig berries as a viable energy source to power her toaster… and the time she mistakenly calibrated Gage's run pod to perceive up as down and down as up (Gage still claims that his left ankle is paralyzed from the crash, but

Raeni tries to ignore his limp)… still, she did have some things to be proud of. Her toes curled, as if she had to double check that thought.

"So _clocks_ are the substitution?" She looked down at the old thing on Gage's carpenter's table. It was rusted and smelly when they first received it. Some pirate had dropped it off only a movement ago, asking GE Mechanics to try and glean some value from it and piece it back together. It was ugly and old and complicated, an absolute abomination; it was against everything she stood for. In fact, the only thing Raeni liked about the old shelf clock was the cute little flower sticker on the bottom. "A toddler could work on this piece of junk!"

"Exactly. It's a seamless switch," said Gage, taking a puff of his e-cigarette through his scruffy black beard.

"Maybe for you," Raeni muttered under her breath.

"What'd you juss say?"

"Enough!" Erin exclaimed. "Stop your bickering, because I have an important announcement to make!"

"Did we git the loan from the Andromeda Trust?" Gage asked. "I've been wantin' to git new equipment for ma gym. These babies," he planted kisses on his bare biceps, "need bettah juice if they're gonna git any bigger, ya know?"

"Do you ever not think about working out?" Raeni deadpanned.

"Naw, not really."

Erin rolled her eyes. "No, Gage. We didn't get the loan," a smirk played across her lips. "We got something even better."

The phoebly dropship was just taking off by the time the three made it outside of the workshop. Dust and metal crumbs smacked into Raeni's cheeks and scraped at her midriff as the ship launched from the moon, engines revving as it soon disappeared from view. When the dust settled, a giant cargo container came into view. Words written in the Olkari language were engraved into the black metal. But Raeni didn't need to know Olkari to know what was inside.

"Oh my gamma, is that what I think it is, Erin?" she asked, suddenly breathless.

"You bet," Erin said as she approached the container. Raeni watched as she pressed a passcode into the digital lock. It flashed green for a moment, and then the entire container whirred to life. Strips of green zig-zagged in pulses, racing across the dark steel until the container unfolded along the edges. Inside was a black, upright cylinder, sleek and perfectly crafted.

"That's it? A big black can a' soda?" Gage snorted. "I thought the Olkari were the most advanced engineers in the entire universe. This here's a disappointment."

"Wait, look!" Raeni exclaimed.

A green light flashed from the middle of the cylinder, and in barely two blinks of her eye, Raeni watched as it contorted, expanded, and opened to form a pair of legs, two pairs of arms, and a head with two antennae. Wings sprouted from the back, shiny and sheer and sparkling under the fluorescent lamp posts. It collapsed onto its six mechanical limbs, and scuttered towards them, antennae twitching about.

"Hello, there!" Raeni said with a smile, crouching down to meet the robot at eye-level. She loved the way it buzzed and purred, antennae brushing her cheeks and exploring the lengths of her silver-white hair. "Aren't you the cutest thing?" she cooed.

"It's an _insect,_ Erin! Why didn't you tell me it was a damn _insect?_" Gage exclaimed, backing away as the blood started to drain from his face.

"Why? You scared of bugs, Gagey-boy?" Raeni sneered.

"N-No! It's just that it's got so many freakin' l-legs and why do those things stickin' outta its head move like that?" he shivered as the thing came closer, head cocking in confusion. "Gah! Git away from me!"

"Oh, stop it, Gage. It's not gonna bite," Erin laughed. "It's a bioengineered kritonza, a highly intelligent life form on the Olkari planet genetically modified to not only perform flawlessly as a robot but also mimic and read the behavior and functionality of other living and nonliving organisms. It's especially capable in assisting with repairs of both large-scale and small-scale engineering projects, from fixing battleship thrusters to, you know, clocks," she explained, eyes sparkling behind her fire-red bangs. "It's going to be a lot of help around the shop."

"And it also makes a great companion," Raeni said before patting the kritonza's smooth head. "According to the Olkari, this little guy can actually host emotions. The bioskin is still intact, and a great deal of its original form is preserved, including the brain. Pretty amazing wetware, huh?" she winked at Gage.

"_Zeep-zap,"_ the kritonza purred.

Gage's face crinkled with disgust. "Yeah, you can keep 'em."

* * *

LATER THAT DAY, Raeni found herself returning to her quarters. The shop that Gage and Erin owned was only so big, and their rooms fit on the second floor of the building accordingly. Her room was a bit small, and somehow, it seemed to get smaller with every passing day. The clutter didn't help, either. Stacks of copper sheets in one corner, a stash of screwdrivers of every size in another, blueprints and coding textbooks scattered across her bed and strewn across the ground, it was a wonder that she was even able to walk about in there.

Her desk was even worse. She sat down, spinning once in her desk chair before setting her over-microwaved pasta on top of a pile of books on aeronautics, fuel cell manipulation, and polyphase systematics. When she looked at the miniature turbine booster sitting on her desk, she wondered what in the galaxy possessed her to grab _so _many cross-dowels and well nuts. They were scattered across her table, dripping over sheets of of planning filled with both feasible ideas and scratched out dreams.

Frowning, she picked up one of the papers. "Gamma," she cursed, "I still need to find a linear actuator!" Raeni grabbed her pasta, spooning almost half of the meal into her mouth with frustration. _Stupid Gage used the last one for his gym tech._

"A linear actuator?"

Raeni almost choked on her food. She spun around in her chair to see Erin in the doorway, a smile on her face. She gulped down her pasta with great difficulty. "Ever heard of knocking?"

"Oh, come on. You know I don't need to knock. We're practically family!"

"Well, I think family still should knock," Raeni said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

"Still working on that booster, huh?" Erin asked, leaning over Raeni's shoulder to take a look at her latest project. "It's looking great."

"It would be greater with a linear actuator."

"I bet it would be," Erin leaned on her desk. "I've got something for you."

Raeni looked up at her, eyebrows furrowed. "You don't have to get me anything, Erin. You've already done so much for me," she looked down in shame. "It's like you said before, I always screw things up. You don't owe me anything. In fact, it's the other way around."

"Don't be dumb," Erin remarked. "You know that you will never be a burden, right? Family is family, and family never owes family anything. You got that?"

Raeni nodded, but she didn't know why she did.

"Open your hand," said Erin, and Raeni obeyed. The older woman pressed something into her palm. It was cold, flat, and about the size of her thumb. "Well? Take a look."

She looked down, and her heart skipped a beat. It skipped several beats. "No. No, Erin, I can't take this."

"Yes, you can, and you will."

"Erin—seriously. I couldn't possibly—please don't tell me you actually ordered this with the Olkari kritonza," Raeni pleaded, begging the redhead's eyes to tell her something else. "You actually—you, this—this is—"

"An integrated biomechanical programming chip that not only sustains glycosaminoglycans in the ECM but also has highly specialized cell reprogramming capabilities that foster communication between living cells as well as engineered ones. It's one of their most advanced forms of wetware and biorobotic technologies," Erin explained. "The Olkari don't mess around, do they?"

"B-But, this must've costed a fortune!" Raeni shook her head violently from her seat. "Thank you, Erin, but I just can't," she tried to thrust it back into the other girl's hand, but to no avail.

"Raeni, I know you've been wanting this for a long time. I've seen you researching it for at least three phoebs. I know how important this is to you, and how important all of," she looked around the room, "_this_ is to you." Erin suddenly took Raeni's hands in her own. Tears pricked at Raeni's eye. "I know that you've only been with us for seven years, but to me and Gage, you've been with us from day one. You're as much a part of our lives as you are a part of your own. Because of that, I want you to live your life to the fullest. I know that sometimes that can be hard for you, and that you can sometimes second-guess yourself."

After all these years, Erin's eyes still had a way of drifting to Raeni's… whatever those things were… but Raeni couldn't blame her. Who wouldn't stare at a freak?

"But I want you to know that Gage and I are here for you, always, even though Gage can be a total asshole sometimes," she chuckled. "We want to see you grow and become someone that you can be proud of, just as we are proud of you. Please, I want you to take this."

Raeni sniffled as she looked at the chip in her palm. It was black and beautiful, green glimmers of energy sparkling behind the power pins and weaving through the maze of logic gates, flip-flops, and multiplexers. She smiled down at it. "Thank you, Erin," she embraced the redhead, nestling her forehead against her shoulder, "Thank you so, so much."

Erin hugged her back. "Now, don't cry, okay? I hate to see tears in that beautiful eye of yours."

Raeni pressed her eye into the fabric, drying her joy. "Gotcha. Thank you, ma'am," she choked out, gripping the chip hard in her sweaty palms.

* * *

SHE ENDED UP WORKING all night. The giant hunk of metal took up her entire desk, some of it hanging off the edge as well. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to get her hands on titanium, so the internal frame was horribly heavy with an iron-lead alloy. Tungsten would have been even better, but she didn't need that kind of strength right now. Sure, she liked the power these gave her, but it wasn't like she needed to protect the universe.

After unscrewing several latches and finding the innermost part of the bionic joint, just above the shock absorber, she took a deep breath. She picked up the microchip, looking at it once over before slowly slipping it into a slot with a pair of tweezers. She hadn't prepped the prosthetic to integrate such complicated processors yet. A few adjustments might have done the trick, but perhaps she was rushing into this, too. _Please just work_, she prayed. She closed the latches, adjusting the last of the three-way circuit wiring and joining a few dockers.

Then she waited.

_Please, please work_.

She thought about curling her toes. She thought hard. She thought about all the things she couldn't do. She thought about _feeling_ something. She thought about being able to walk without a second thought. She thought about how the breeze from the wheezy ventilation would feel against her 'ankles'. She thought about doing and feeling the things she just couldn't. She thought so hard that she thought she might've wept.

Then the toes on the table curled.

Her breath caught in her throat. Heart beating fast, she tried again, thinking about rolling her ankle.

Then the ankle on the table rolled.

She thought about bending her knee, and the knee on the table raised up to bend. She thought about flipping her foot back and forth, and the foot on the table flopped like a fish out of water.

A smile spread across her lips. A crazy smile.

"I-It works!" she exclaimed, her throat dry and raspy as though she hadn't used it in years. "It actually works!" This was it. No more thought-action lags, no more manually clicking buttons, no more having to make her body move inorganically.

No, this was the real thing.

Enthralled in excitement, she didn't realize she was falling off of her chair. Just as she did, she yelped, her bottom slipping off of the leather and landing not on the tile floor but into a pair of gentle arms. _A pair of arms?_

"_Zeep-zap," _the kritonza purred, antennae moving quizzically.

Raeni laughed. "Nice save, there, buddy! Hm, what should I call you? How about…" she snapped her fingers, "Zipper?"

"_Zip-zeep."_

"Uh, I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

Something flickered across Zipper's head, across what probably might have been its face. A small green dot flashed, like the one when it first activated, and before Raeni could understand what was happening, she watched in surprise as a scanning beam aligned at her shifting electric eyes. It didn't burn or sting. The light was gentle, somehow, tickling her as it scanned down from the top of her head to her nose to her shoulders to her belly to her hips to her thi—

The scanner stopped as the rays shot out past Raeni's body and onto the ground below.

Her heart sank a little.

"Sorry, Zipper. I'm afraid that's all of me," she chuckled.

Even so, the scanner returned to her, analyzing the stubs of her thighs, or whatever they were. The light shivered over the smoothened skin, bumpy at the bases but certainly more presentable than they were seven years ago. It lingered over the nanosensors and pseudo-synapse transmission replicators that dotted the mended flesh rather than moles and birthmarks. They were useless before, implanted into her skin with the hopes that she would be able to just think an action and make it happen. And as Zipper finished the scan, the light disintegrating into the air, she realized those hopes were now a reality.

"_Zeep-zap..."_

She frowned. "Um, I can't quite understand. But, if you're saying 'I'm sorry', then you don't need to. I've been like this for as long as I can remember, so even I can't feel sorry for myself," she tried to laugh. "I'm okay, really."

Raeni looked up at her right leg on the table. Mechanical, cold, lifeless, but beautiful, intelligent, and as powerful as ever. When she had legs like those, legs that she built herself, legs that she could actually be proud of, who needed _real_ legs? It didn't matter how she ended up this way. It didn't matter that she would never be the same as most other humans. It didn't matter.

_Right?_

She smiled again, silently proud of how dry both her eyes were. "I'm okay, Zipper. Could you just… put me back up on that chair, please?"

* * *

_BOOM!_

Raeni woke up with a start. Her sleepy eyes focused on the spinning fan above her, squeaky and hanging on by just a few wires. It did make random spurts and noises at times, and it always woke her up in the middle of the night, ensuring that she never really got a good night's sleep. _I should really fix that_, she thought to herself. She groaned as Raeni brought her head back down, neck aching with the motion.

"How long was I out for?" she asked through a raspy voice, and Zipper buzzed to life from beneath her desk.

"_Zip-zip, zeep, zapzap,"_ the kritonza purred as it poked its head out, antennae twitching.

"Still have no idea what that means," Raeni chuckled. She cocked her head, and Zipper did the same, mimicking her motions. "I wonder if I could program you to speak in the common tongue, that way—"

_BOOM!_

Raeni's desk rattled with the sound.

She turned to Zipper, who seemed to be gazing through the window above her desk. "That definitely wasn't the fan, was it?" Zipper didn't respond, so Raeni heaved herself forwards in her rolling chair to look through the window, squinting hard to see whatever it was Zipper did. "I can't see anything…" she trailed off, reaching blindly to grab her glasses off her desk, knocking textbooks and nails onto the ground in the process. She fixed them on clumsily, blinking hard before staring sharply through the window. "I still don't—"

A bright light flashed in the olive-green sky, and _BOOM!_ another blast of sound made her entire room shake and shiver.

"A sonic boom?" she thought aloud. _That means…_ she watched as the light grew brighter and brighter, and the details of a—_ship?—_came into view.

_It's falling._

_No._

_It's _crashing_._

Raeni's heart threatened to burst out of her chest.

"_Zeepzeepzap!"_ Zipper squealed, antennae moving madly. "_Zip-zip-zap! ZAP!"_ it buzzed before scurrying to the door.

"Hey, wait a minute! Zipper!" Raeni cried, but it was already out of sight. She turned back to the window, and watched as sheets of metal, thrusters, and engines were blasted off of the ship in fiery fragments as it came down, down, down towards the moon's surface. "How can this be happening? How did they get our coordinates? At this rate…" Raeni suddenly remembered that she could run around the moon's circumference in only fifteen dobashes. It was so, so small. Her world was so, so, _so_ small.

_It's going to destroy it_.

Without a second thought, Raeni grabbed both bionic legs off the table, instinctively positioning them beneath her thighs. "R-Rejoin!" she commanded, surprised by the foreign uneasiness in her voice. _Let's take this microchip for a spin._

The legs obeyed her nonetheless. A blinking white light indicated so, and _click, clack, hum,_ sockets and extenders reached out of the legs and clasped onto her skin, nanosensors and replicators flashing in approval across her skin, glowing with their newfound productivity. She bit her lip as a sting of pain surged through the nerve endings of her legs, up her spine, sprawling over the crown of her skull. A guilty grin spread across her lips as she felt her senses rush through from the top of her head to her iron-lead toes.

Raeni stood up, silently relishing the feel of the tile floor before slipping on the cargo pants and combat boots that hid her artificial half from the rest of the world. Grabbing her helmet and leather jacket in the process, she rushed out of her room.

The sound of the falling ship was growing louder and louder, and by the time she had reached the docking harbor, she could feel gusts of wind blasting at her as the wreck approached. She looked this way and that from behind the shades of her helmet before breaking into a sprint for the garage.

As she ran, her attention snapped to the ship. It was coming unbelievably fast. _Where in the universe are Gage and Erin? They needed to be here more than ever! _Raeni grumbled as she threw open the garage door, rummaging around for whatever could be helpful, whatever she could use to save the only family she had.

"Quiznak!" she cursed, kicking scraps of useless machines and broken ion cannons. "What am I going to do?"

"_Zapzap!"_ Zipper whizzed from beside her, a flash bang laser gun on its back.

Raeni laughed, out of both amusement and wonder. "Thanks, Zipper!" she exclaimed before grabbing it and racing back outside. As her legs leaped and leaped, her fingers found the command pad on the gun. With a few taps, the weapon began to vibrate in her hands, pulsating with energy; with lethality. "Lets see if this baby can blast that thing to bits before it takes us all out!"

But before she could send a hypercharged beam of energy spiralling to the ship, she felt something strong, something purposeful smash into the ground, knocking her off the ground and the gun out of her hands.

It came from the ship.

* * *

EDIT: Raeni's 'thank you' to Erin becomes a 'thank you **ma'am**' (pretty important ;) )

Man, I have no idea where I'm going with this.

Well, I kind of do. Well... maybe not? I don't know. I just love Voltron.


	3. KEITH-002

Guess who's back, back again? Also, I split this up into two chapters. SO everyone who thought I updated another chapter, I'm very sorry.

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-002

KEITH

_SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. SYSTEM MALFUNCTION._

The alarm blared and blared, red alerts glowing bright against the dashboard of the pod. Sweat trickled down Keith's cheek as he entered recalibration sequences, emergency recovery prompts, desperately trying to stabilize the spacecraft. No matter how many times he'd run through crash simulations and emergency drills, he could never shake the feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach when crisis arose for real.

The spacecraft rumbled beneath him, clambering and shivering as he went down, down, down. The engines were shot, and the left wing was blown off. The cabin was slowly depressurizing, and he was struggling to breathe. The alerts went wild as flames engulfed the pod, the fire swallowing pilot and ship entirely into its throat. Wind and air rocked him in his seat, aiding the gravity that sucked him to his doom.

When he thought it just couldn't get any worse, he realized there was someone standing on the moon. The small figure was comparable to the decrepit workshop, the only building on the moon, and Keith couldn't help but let out a miserable chuckle at the universe's spite at him. The shack was just like his home back in the desert, the only structure in a several miles' radius, isolated and alone and vulnerable.

And there was someone here, someone who had a life, and someone who was going to join him in facing a horrible, fiery death. He was going to lose the Blades. He was going to lose Voltron. He was going to lose everything.

This was his fault. He knew that the pod was faulty, and he took it out anyways. _Stupid! _he cursed himself. _You're so _quiznaking _stupid! Now you're going to die here…_

Flashing symbols on the dashboard caught his eye.

One of the engines was still intact.

He could manage at least _one_ reverse thrust.

… _or, maybe not._

With every ounce of energy and hope left, Keith rushed to switch flight assist off before slamming his fist on the control panel, the touchpad responding immediately as the craft roared, thrown into a spinning frenzy.

"Come on," he groaned as he felt the engine sputter. "Just slow me down a bit more," bitter encouragement spilling from his chapped lips as he gripped the controls with all his might, steadying the pod's extreme yaw as best as he could.

To his dismay, the ship tipped and dropped again, and Keith felt a light-headedness overcome his senses. The G-forces were going to kill him, if not the crash. In his dizziness, he felt his hand smack the control panel again, and instead of hitting something useful (which was pretty much everything else), he hit the laser cannon.

Hanging by a thread with useless stabilizers and dying engines, the ship lurched back from the force of the shot.

Before he could even take in what happened, Keith watched as fireworks of cloud of smoke and dust erupted from the surface of the moon, right where the person was standing before. His heart dropped. Did he just _shoot_ at them?

_Oh no._

"_TOO LOW, TERRAIN. TOO LOW, TERRAIN," _the female voice cried as the ashy ground came closer and closer. The details of cargo and freight pods appeared. He could read the sign on the front of the shack, _GE Mechanics_. Wait, he could read it? "_PULL UP, PULL UP. TERRAIN, TERRAIN. PULL UP, PULL UP."_

"Here we go," Keith grumbled, heaving the throttles back but bracing for impact.

"_TERRAIN, TERRAIN. PULL UP, PULL UP. TERRAIN, TERRAIN. PULL UP, PULL—"_

* * *

EVERYTHING WAS ACHING when Keith's eyes slowly opened. The glass of his helmet was smashed, and he could see through the dark, jagged glass to observe still, crumpled metal above him. He turned his head to the side, the biting stench of fuel filling his nose as he took tremulous breaths. The dust-filled air invited violent coughs to burst from his chest, and each cough sent waves of pain through his abdomen.

Even so, pain meant only one thing.

_I…_ He breathed heavily. _I'm alive…_

Keith looked this way and that, realizing that he had been nearly crushed beneath the weight of the metal frame of the pod. His arms were free, and so he grabbed whatever remnants of the control panel and random edges of broken ship he could reach to pull himself towards the hatch.

He cried out when he felt a sharp sting course through his leg. Sighing with disbelief, Keith realized his right calf was stuck, buried and trapped underneath the wreckage of the pilot seat. Still, he could peer, though needing to squint, through the broken glass of the canopy to the outside world.

The sky was green. An ugly green. Scraps of the pod were scattered across the surface of the moon, and he couldn't see any signs of life. No water, no trees—it was an arid, dead moon.

_Quiznak_, Keith suddenly thought about whom he had shot at, _what if I crushed him?_

But Keith's suspicions quickly evaporated when he saw a hazy figure zoom from behind a cargo container to the cover of one of his broken, still smoking engines. He blinked, scrunching his eyes as if it confirm what he saw. He was so _fast!_

"Hey!" he cried out. "I'm, uh, real sorry for crashing into your home like this! I didn't mean to!" Despite his calls, the figure didn't emerge from behind the engine. "I'm not going to hurt you! You don't have to hide! Please, I need your help!" he groaned as he tried once again to wriggle free, "I'm—I'm stuck in here!"

Silence.

"Hey—"

_BANG!_ Keith felt the rubble above him shudder from an abrupt force. _He shot at me!_ he thought, appalled by such a dishonorable attack. The pod creaked and moaned, steel and polycarbonate glass bending and snapping, and before he knew it, his leg slipped free of its confines. Heart dropping with realization, he scrambled his hands and feet to crawl and crawl until he reached the canopy. He smashed the rest of the glass with his fist before clawing his way out onto solid ground, eternally grateful to any and all gods as his gloved fingers finally touched ashen ground.

Coughing, he yanked off his helmet as he lay face-down in the dirt. _Where in the hell did I end up this time?_

Another sharp blast, only about two feet away from his face, snapped at the ground.

"Gah!" Keith exclaimed before shuffling to his feet in a panic, charging behind some remains of the pod. "What the hell? Why is he shooting at me?" he thought aloud, peering out from his cover to scan his surroundings before another blast clanged against the steel of the pod.

His hand automatically reached across his waist for his blade, but he knew that a sword wasn't going to be of much help in this situation. Whoever wanted to kill him had the upperhand in this environment, with plenty of places for cover and even more space in between them. There was no way Keith could handle hand-to-hand combat over such vast land.

"Hey, you!" he exclaimed, back against the pod. "We don't have to do this! Let's talk this through. We can figure something out, you and me."

Another silence. Longer, this time.

A shard of the pod's wing was sliced into the ground nearby. It was closer to the engine, the hiding spot of his attacker, and Keith realized that if he was fast, he could get behind there and still be covered.

Taking a deep breath, he made a run for it.

Panting hard, chest aching, he somersaulted into a crouch in the shadow of the wing. He peered out for a moment. The engine was _right there_. If he just shortened the distance between them, then he would actually have a chance at overcoming the shooter. Shaking his head, hoping for the best, he sprinted again, drawing his blade into a blazing purple sword.

"Gotcha!" he exclaimed as he leaped into the air to pin down his perpetrator.

But he landed on the ground.

He was gone.

_Huh?_

Keith nearly screamed as a blast hit the engine, sourced from a cargo container right by the pod; practically where Keith had started. He growled with anger. How did he get all the way over there so _quiznaking _fast? The engine fizzled in front of him, sparks shooting from every crack and crevice. It was going to blow, and Keith needed to find somewhere to hide.

He rushed to hide behind a stack of crates, looking back in horror as the engine burst into a bubbling mushroom cloud of ash and fire, shrapnels blasting from the force and barreling into his armor. _He's trying to draw me out!_ Keith realized. Blast after blast, he had Keith running all over the place, panting hard and dripping in sweat.

For a moment, the relentless barrage had stopped. Heart thrumming in his ears, eyes wide and alive with adrenaline, Keith cautiously stepped out from behind one of the pod's smashed ion cannons and into the open air. His feet were shaky as he moved step by agonizingly slow step, sword clenched tight in his sweaty palms.

_Here goes nothing._

The shooter walked out in front of one of the other engines, weapon raised and locked against his shoulder as he regarded Keith quietly through the gun sight. He was small. The bulk of his clothing made him look bigger, but Keith could see the scrawny legs hidden underneath the cargo pants. As Keith traced his gaze over his attacker inch by inch, he noticed something dancing just by the shooter's neck—tiny flames licking at the dented metal of the engine.

His stomach dropped.

"RUN!" Keith cried out, voice coarse and desperate.

But the shooter could barely afford a glance back before the engine exploded behind him.

Keith shielded his eyes and face with his forearms as the debris-speckled shockwave swept across the surface of the moon. Losing his standing, he fell to one knee and watched as fire engulfed what was left of the engine.

Then, when the ash and dust settled once again, he saw the figure lying motionless on the ground. Absent even an ounce hesitation, Keith broke into a sprint and rushed to his side.

"Hey!" he choked out through coughs in the sooty air, collapsing to his knees beside the man. "Are you okay?"

The shooter was lying face down, shards of his helmet scattered around his head and his hand still tight around the gun's grip. Keith bent down, lending an ear to listen to the gentle breaths that escaped through the helmet's mouthpiece. _Alive_. He almost smiled. Keith realized the shooter's pants were shredded, as pieces of it lay floating about in the breeze and embers flickered on its threads. Suspicious of leg injuries, he tried to turn him over.

"You're gonna be okay. Let's just get you on your back," he said as he reached one hand under the stomach and the other to a leather-clad shoulder. Keith frowned as he felt bones shift underneath his touch. _So skinny_. Gently, he flipped the unconscious attacker over, and when Keith looked down to look for any injuries at the knees, he was surprised to see the legs. Or, whatever they were. Steel glistened in the light instead of flesh. Gadgets and switches ran up and down the sides of the calves, chunks of hefty metal crumpled together around the knees haphazardly. White lights blinked here and there, racing across wires and whirring in a frenzy of energy.

He was half robot.

Then he heard the shrill sound of a particle blaster charging in his ear. He turned to the sound, only for cool metal to press firmly against his forehead.

Many might have fainted right then and there. Luckily for Keith, he was, admittedly, a bit stubborn.

He took a deep breath, swallowing his fear in a gulp. "We don't have to do this," he said in the most calm voice a man could manage with a laser gun barrel pointed at his brains.

The shooter said nothing.

Keith pursed his lips in frustration. "Listen. I don't want to hurt you, so could you, please, put the gun down?"

What was the point in trying to negotiate with this guy? He should've just finished him off when he had the chance. He cursed himself for his fatal mistake:

He put the man before the mission.

Kolivan's words blared loud in his ears, screaming like the dying sound of his pod. "_Love is the death of duty. The path of emotion is the path of destruction."_

"_Know thyself."_

There was a silence, and Keith could have sworn that his heart was about to burst from anxiousness. Sweat dripped into his eye, and even as it stung him near to blindness, he knelt there, rigid and silent as the shooter's metal legs, as the gun at his forehead. He watched as he removed his helmet with his other hand, silver-white hair tumbling to the dirt. Irises pouring citrus, an electric hazel, barreled into his own, and the birthmark on the left cheekbone, just below the eye, proved itself to be strangely distracting. But the olive skin was glowing, tinted with a distinctly familiar type of life.

He wasn't a robot. No, _she_ was human. And she didn't have any legs.

She chuckled, pink lips peeling back into almost earnest glee. "You look really stupid right now, did you know that?"

* * *

"He's human, Erin! As in, a real, living human, just like me!" Keith had to strain to see it, lest risking his head getting blown off, but the human girl was wearing the most surprised, elated expression that he'd ever seen. With cheeks puffed and blushing with energy and eyes alight like galaxies, she might've burst from excitement.

"I see that, Raeni," the female alien, Erin, said before offering the girl a glance, "you know, you can put the gun down now, right?"

"Didn't you hear what I just said? He's _human_. Humans have never reached out this far into space. There's no way they have the technology for that yet. Things can't change _that_ dramatically in three years," the human girl, Raeni, spat, cocking the gun and keeping it aimed perfectly at Keith's head. "Who knows what this guy's doing all the way out here." Keith eyed her warily from his seat on the cold metal stool inside the shop. She dug her combat boots down into the ground, iron kneecaps twisting obediently under her weight.

"Don't mindher, yeah? She's a lil'…" the male alien spun his finger in the air emphatically.

"Gage, I'll point it at you, instead."

"Case n' point."

"So," Erin sat down across from him. He couldn't recognize her or Gage's race. With Erin's fiery red bangs, Gage's mohawked, generously gelled teal hair, and their shared feline eyes and noses, they resembled giant, biker cats with complete sets of leather-clad fingers and studded steel-toed shoes. "I take it that you didn't crash land into our humble little moon to get something repaired from G.E. Mech, eh?"

"That wasn't my original intention, but I guess I need some help now, at least, from the state of my pod," Keith sulked before looking out of the window of the shop. Who was he kidding? The rubble from his craft was _beyond _repairable. "I guess—"

"Who do you work for, kid?"

Keith was taken aback. He _hated_ being interrupted. But he wasn't going to express that hatred towards strangers. At least, not today. "Huh?"

"Your getup is whack," Gage snickered. "Are you, like, n'assassin, or sump'm?"

He frowned. Keith rather liked his Blades uniform. But before he could open his mouth to protest, the weight of his past actions suddenly came crashing down like boulders. He couldn't reveal his affiliation to the Blade of Malmora, hell, he couldn't reveal the Blades at all. Crashing on an inhabited moon was proving to be more trouble than he'd originally imagined. What could he do?

"No, no, I… uh…" _Think, Keith, think!_ "This is just something I have to wear for, uh…" he managed a smile, "... my martial arts… training?" He wanted to hit himself. _Good one, Keith. You should've just told them you were a quiznaking tulip._

The sound of metal crashing to the metal floor made him jump. Raeni had dropped her gun in surprise, a grin stretching across her cheeks. "Oh my gamma, you do martial arts?" she exclaimed, suddenly buzzing like the energy gun. "I've always wanted to learn! Can we keep him, Erin?"

Keith felt the blood drain from his face. What did she take him for, a stray puppy awaiting adoption? "Uh—"

"Oh, can it, Raeni," Gage whined. "_You_, of all people, don't need martial arts training. Besides, why do martial arts when you can just hit the gym like me?"

"_Please_, don't ever ask me that again."

The quarrel between the two reminded Keith of his friends, especially the daily ones he had with Lance. It was only then did he realize that he missed his friends. A lot, actually. Perhaps more than he'd care to admit. But then he remembered his training. Afterall, it was the mission before the man. He needed to find the Blades first. Then he could worry about friends, emotions, and everything else that came secondary to the mission.

"I was hoping," his lips followed his thoughts, "that you could help me get back home?"

"Where do humans live a'gin?" Gage asked the human girl, who, at least to Keith, had probably the most un-human name he'd ever heard. 'Raeni' sounded more like the name of an artificially intelligent virtual assistant than the name of a person.

"Earth, and it's billions and billions and _billions_ of lightyears away," she turned to him, eyebrows lifted with ridicule. "You might as well have asked for us to hand you the Milky Way on a silver platter."

It took nearly all his strength for Keith to refrain from snapping at her. "Before I crashed onto this moon, I was actually out, uh…" _Come on, think!_ "... running errands," _Ugh_, "and I just need to get back to my crew as soon as I can. Our base isn't too far from here."

Raeni's expression softened. "There are more? More people?"

"Y-Yeah," he said, watching her eyes widen with wonder.

"So, should we drop ya there?" Gage asked.

"NO!" Keith exclaimed, his stomach plummeting only a moment later. A drop-off meant sudden death, unnecessary bloodshed; a slaughter of these three on the spot just to maintain secrecy. Even if the Blades came to him, a similarly haunting scenario would likely play out. He didn't want to betray the Blades, but he didn't want innocents to die for his endlessly reckless decisions. But judging by the alarmed expressions before him, Keith understood the inappropriacy of his tone. "I mean, that wouldn't be the best idea."

"Can you man'ge to get n' contact with yer base?"

"No, my comm's jammed from the crash," he lied through his teeth. The pod didn't _have_ comms, in order to prevent outside parties locking onto their frequencies and intercepting confidential information. As a Blade, he didn't need them either. He was capable of following a plan to the T without any assistance. At least, that's what he was _supposed_ to be capable of.

He breathed deeply. _Now what?_

"It's fine, you can just take one of our pods," said Erin.

_Well, that was easy_. "What?"

"Yeah, wha'?" Gage repeated.

"You do realize that we only have one pod, Erin?" said Raeni, leaning against the rusted tin of the table. "Were we always this broke?"

"Seven years in this shithole and ya still didn't get that?"

"Well, what else are we gonna do?" Erin threw her hands in the air. "Poor kid needs to get back to his buds. Besides, they're _humans_. They're one of the most docile races in the universe," she turned to Keith, "and I trust you won't cause us or anybody else in this galaxy any trouble, right?"

"Of course. You have my word." The lies kept on coming, and he suddenly didn't know whether he was enacting the duty of a Blade or opposing it.

"Shake on it, pipsqueak," Gage hacked up saliva and dark gray fur before spitting it into his palm and reaching his hand out to Keith. He felt bile rise in his throat at the sight of it. _You've gotta be kidding_. "Your word don't mean nothin' till you shake on it."

"R-Right," Keith managed before hesitantly clasping the male's hand in an unexpectedly tight grip, the furball slushing into his gloved—he thanked the universe for that small kindness—hand.

"Better keep your promise, Keith. A handshake in this galaxy means everything," Raeni explained, leaning forward, "especially if you spit on it."

* * *

APPARENTLY, their only pod wasn't in the best shape. It would be a while before Gage and Erin would be able to make the necessary repairs before sending Keith on his way. After all that had happened after deciding to take a faulty pod out, Keith was much obliged for their considerable time and effort. Needless to say, he inwardly swore that he'd never fly a shitty pod again.

Raeni had asked to help them out. The response was clear with a hefty guffaw from Gage, followed by a '_Quiznak_, that's a good one, Raeni,' and a 'Not this time, sweetie' through Erin's apologetic smile. Despite the pleas of the girl, who was acting like a child who was denied a trip to the theme park, Gage and Erin had slipped through the store's scratched up glass door, leaving him and Raeni in their dust. When it closed shut, the rusty bell above it tinkled. The silence that followed the solemn sound was almost unbearable.

He forgot that socializing wasn't his forte.

Keith looked over at the girl. The frustration of betrayal on her face, red on her cheeks and taut in her brows, was so potent that for a moment Keith thought she might've cried. But instead, she took a deep breath and puffed out her chest. Like a bird trying to look bigger.

He'd been correct. Now donned in a pair of fitted, black utility shorts and a cropped turtleneck that stuck stubbornly to her ribs, her tininess was more evident that ever. It was difficult for him to fathom how this same girl had almost killed him with her perfect aim, superhuman speed, and undeniable skill in combat, allowing her to corner him—_Keith_—into surrender in the first place.

But now, she just looked like a pouty, petulant teenager who must have been unbearably annoyed with her foster parents. She turned to him, eyes darting across the floor as though she couldn't bear to look at him directly.

"You like microwave pasta?" she asked.

* * *

"We…"

"... you can't possibly…"

"When are we… tell her?"

"... _can't_, Gage!"

Listened a little closer.

"Sev'n years, Erin. Sev'n years!" Gage's voice was unmistakable. It was softer than before.

"So what do you suggest we do?" Erin's voice cracked. "Tell her the truth, just like that? Do you even know what that means?"

_What could it possibly mean?_

"'Course, I do. It's just… I can't lie t' her no mo', ya know? You saw how jumpy she was when she found tha' boy. She's meant to be wit them, wit her kind, just like you n' me. She needs 'em."

"I know."

"You know that we can't keep'her here forever.

"... I know."

* * *

SORRY that this was posted so late, you guys! I just got swamped with work at school, and now that I'm on summer break, I think I can bust out more chapters. How was this POV? Is Keith kinda on character, or is he OOC? What do you think of Raeni? The narration? The flow?

Let me know how I did in the reviews, guys! Don't forget to fave and follow, I really appreciate it!

Thank you so much!

~AVA


	4. KEITH-003

I'M SORRY GUYS this is the SAME writing that I posted in the previous chapters. With constructive criticism and advice from my friends, I decided to split it into two separate chapters. Sorry, you guys! Hope I didn't disappoint too too much :))

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-003

KEITH

SHE EVEN _ATE_ FAST. Keith watched in awe, partly with horror, as Raeni forked the food into her mouth at a speed that would even put Hunk to shame. Heavy steel rings adorned her fingers, the shapes of tiger heads, skulls, and snakes glinting at him, and the industrial chains around her neck clinked together as she ate. Her steel-heeled combat boots clunked against the metal of their seat atop a cargo container. Eating seemed to be an exciting, restless venture for her; a whole-body endeavor.

Keith looked down at the meal on his lap. Pesto pasta had been a dream, since he'd been living off of Altean 'delicacies', according to Coran, and the various, unidentifiable foods that the Blades provided. But as he stared at the overload of carbs, drenched in a horrible myriad of cheese, preservatives, and chemicals, Keith strangely felt his appetite slip away.

"I like your outfit."

He hadn't been paying attention. "Sorry?" he asked.

"Your outfit," she gulped down more pasta, "it's cool. Forget what Gage said. He was just being an asshole. Kinda his thing," she smiled as she held the empty cardboard bowl back behind her head, only proceeding to propel it ten feet into the air. They both watched as it slipped perfectly into a garbage can outside the shop, at least one hundred meters away from their seat. She hummed, cocking her head, as though the toss wasn't to her liking. Keith felt some shade of jealousy bloom in his chest. It was an _impossible _throw.

"Thanks," he said. Mumbled, rather, too preoccupied with too many things about her, especially what he'd discovered about her in their little battle. Keith watched as Raeni shuffled in her seat, back curved due to poor posture, pulling her legs up into a criss-cross. The glint of her knees, fluorescent light snapping at iron, appeared and disappeared as she moved. He asked about the moon, though. "What's the name of this moon?"

She looked at him strangely. "It doesn't have a name."

"What do you mean 'it doesn't have a name'?"

"It's just a random moon. Erin and Gage just found it lying around decades ago, and nobody else had claimed it."

"Weird."

"More like lucky. They escaped from prison after being convicted of theft and fraud in their last workplace on their home planet, Caetera," she explained. "They were part of a gang of over thirty members, but it was only those two that got caught for…" she shook her head, making a face confessing that even _she_ didn't understand the full story, "... whatever it was that they were doing. Then, they set up shop here, and I guess they never looked back." Gage and Erin's quarreling could be heard from the ground below. "True, they have a rough past, but they're good people." Cavalier of it all, she shrugged. "So, it's just me, Gage, and Erin, here."

"_Zip-zap!"_

Keith jumped at the sound of buzzing below him. He peered over his seat, glancing down the wall of the container, only to see what appeared to be a giant, black, metallic insect peering up at him, antennae moving about.

"Oh! And Zipper," she added before ordering: "Zipper, get down from there!"

"_Zeep, zeepzap,"_ the machine purred before springing up from its clawed-on position on the container's wall, landing perfectly on its six legs by Raeni's side.

"He's a frisky little thing for a robot of only about… ten vargas?" she huffed at the biometric creature. It sent shivers down Keith's spine. "You really should introduce yourself in a more polite way, ya know? This is Keith Kogane, the guy you saw crashing from outside."

"_Zipzeep!" _Zipper exclaimed. It crept over to him, standing on four legs as it reached its other two out to rest on Keith's thigh. He could _feel_ the sheer confusion, or maybe harmony, between artifice and nature pulsing through the creature's machinery. It's head cocked from side to side, sticking at the ends for a few seconds, studying him, and oddly enough, Keith couldn't help but feel that his area of personal space was rather violated, even if it was by a robot-ant.

"What is this thing?" he asked, dodging and pulling away each time it tried to get closer to him.

"It's a kritonza from Olkarion. Neat, huh? We just got him, but he's going to help us around the shop. Bonus points, 'cause he's a friend, too!" she cheered.

Keith glanced beyond the investigative claws of the kritonza to the world around him. There really was nothing on the moon, and the workshop was equally comparable. It was all rather humble, where a few projects had been littered around on different carpenters' tables. The walls were morose inside and out: gray, steely, and cold like the moon itself. "Doubt this little guy will be much help. It doesn't look like you get that much business."

Raeni slouched a little at that. "Yeah, that's true. This moon is in the middle of nowhere," she pulled her lips into a transient, easy frown, eerily similar to the one that Lance makes when he doesn't really care about something, "but we get by with what we have. Microwave food is actually really cheap if you order it in bulk." Keith felt the kritonza's antennae brush against his cheeks, combing through his hair and patting his nose in such a manner that he was convinced it was trying to wipe something off of it. Raeni giggled. "I think he likes you."

"You don't say," Keith deadpanned. Even as the kritonza probed and explored every inch of his face, his mind wandered beyond, _those legs_ infecting his thoughts. Bionic limbs weren't anything particularly foreign to him, especially since Shiro had one. Besides, with all the things he's seen galaxies away, like biometric trees, android soldiers, android-piloted fighter jets, and the Balmera (which, to him, were basically sentient rocks), Keith readily believed that he'd seen it all. But bionic technology hadn't been perfected on Earth yet, so how did she—

"Ask," she said suddenly.

"Huh?"

"You've been staring at them whenever you've had the chance."

Keith crossed his arms, huffing. "I was not."

A laugh escaped her lips, but something about it was dim and solemn. It was only when it disappeared that Keith noticed something _different_ about her. Some elusive spark, bright and airy, etched into her chaotic eyes of lime, orange, and aquamarine, and shivering off of her chirpy tongue. Was this the result of prolonged exposure to chemicals, radiation, unusual gravities, advanced machinery, cat-aliens, and a wholly different environment than earth? Radioactive eyes and silver hair? Missing legs? "Everyone asks, anyways," she said, pulling a knee up to her chest, fingers tracing up and down the circuitry, following the landing strips of blinking white lights. "I had an accident when I was little. I've been like this ever since."

_Oh._

_Nice one, Keith_, he thought to himself in self-admonition. "I'm sorry," he managed with a frisson of unease. The air suddenly felt like it was thick with smog. It weighed his head down, and he couldn't meet her eye to eye. He'd barely realized that the kritonza had scurried its way back to Raeni's side.

"I bet you wanna see one, right?"

And just like that, with a flurry of excited words, she had unpinned the melancholy.

"Huh?"

"Separate!" The sound of screws and metal scraping at each other, pistons pumping, releasing, circuits snapping, and steam whistling suddenly made him realize what she was doing.

"Here, Zipper, give this to Keith!" she ordered, and Keith watched wide-eyed as the kritonza sat patiently while Raeni gently lowered her right bionic leg onto its back. Whatever was left of her thigh remained attached to her hips, scars and interface points, like screwheads, scattered over the skin. There were many scars, one of them thick and pale along the inside of her thigh. Keith winced. It must've been a deep cut, and at a nasty spot like that, anyone could have easily died of blood loss. _Some accident_, he mused.

"_Zip?"_ the kritonza seemed to ask him.

Keith came to his senses. "Wait, I—"

"_Zip!"_

Before he knew it, a giant wad of metal, screws, and circuitry came crashing down on his lap.

"Zipper! You gotta be more careful with that!" Raeni scolded the pet. "It wasn't that easy to build, you know?"

His gaze met hers. "You _built_ these?" he asked, dumbfounded, before returning his focus to the prosthetic in his lap. It was incredibly heavy, crushing his bones with what felt like at least thirty pounds. How did she manage to walk around so effortlessly with them on? How did she _run_ with them?

"Duh!" she laughed at the stupid question. "I'm a damn good mechanic, you know? Even though Gage and Erin won't admit it." She must have been right. The workmanship was a bit rough around the edges, a tad clumsy, but was overall a sound piece of work. Keith wasn't well-versed in the field of engineering, but he was certain that deft hands were needed to craft this bionic limb.

_Impressive_. Raeni's skills were beyond even the top engineers at the Garrison. The technology hadn't even been developed on Earth yet, and somehow this girl was able to design and implement working bionic prosthetic legs. Not only did they just _work_, but they promised superhuman speed and strength. Half-robot, but undoubtedly superior to him—to many—in combat. She would've made a formidable force as a fighter and an engineer.

But the big question remained in Keith's head: how did she get all the way out here? How did she end up working alongside feline aliens in a mechanics shops on a deserted moon in the middle of space? With such a _condition_, Keith just couldn't fathom how she had made it out to space in the first place. No space center or flight facility would ever allow someone with this high level of physical disability to leave Earth's atmosphere. Such a person would be a hindrance, perhaps even a danger, to a crew and the mission in the case of prosthetic malfunction or any other plausible complication. Despite her own individual strengths, she would be an inevitable weakness to her teammates; a risk not worth taking.

So how did she get here? And why didn't she go home?

"Oh, well, I don't really know what I'm doing here." He must have been staring at her, shellshocked, because she didn't miss the questions in his eyes. Even though she had bypassed a great number of them. It appeared that she didn't really care, though, with hands behind her, flat on the surface of the cargo container, her elbows taut. A gentle wind swept her quicksilver hair into its folds. Keith followed her electric gaze into the sky.

"What do you mean?"

She scratched the back of her head with what sounded like a forced snicker. "You see, I've got an awful memory, and—"

The sound of a revving flight pod engine thrummed through the air. The container shook beneath them, and Zipper scurried onto Raeni's back to support itself.

"Oh, _hell_ yeah! Look at tha', Erin! We quiznakin' did it!" Gage bellowed from inside the garage on the ground below.

"Gage, watch out for the—"

"Is this—HOT!" a bizarre, high-pitched squeal tore from Gage's throat.

Erin's groan rocked the moon. "I told you not to touch the pipes!"

"Damn, thought I optimized 'em fer rapid cooling!"

"_Clearly not_, you damn punching bag!" The

"_Zip-zap," _the kritonza purred from its perch on Raeni's shoulder.

Her smile was brilliant. "Guess they're done."

Keith's eyes widened. "That quick?"

* * *

UNFORTUNATELY, it was too quick to be true. When Gage tried to start the engine for a second, third, fourth, then twenty-third time, Erin declared that it was a lost cause, even though Gage was fully prepared to try another hundred times if need be. Raeni had to pry him away from the pod's rusty piloting seat, and Keith was sure that tears were welling in his eyes at the loss.

"Sorry, kid," Erin said as the sky began to darken and the air ran cold. "It looks like you're not going anywhere anytime soon, after all. You're welcome to stay the night, though, and we can figure this all out in the morning."

Keith was disappointed, but not surprised. "Sounds good to me," although it probably wouldn't sound as good to the Blades. Panic bloomed in his chest, heart racing at the prospect of the possible consequences due to his disappearance.

"Dibs that he's not staying in my room!" Raeni cried out, throwing an index finger to her nose and mumbling, "There's barely any space for me, anyways."

"Dibs!" Erin echoed.

"Damn y'all!" Gage whined, drawing the proverbial short straw. "Welp, whatev'r. Maybe I can give him some tips on beefin' up. How's abou'tha, ya scrawny lil' boy?"

Blood sent fire to his cheeks. "Scrawny?!"

* * *

THE BED CREAKED when Keith carefully, measuredly lifted himself from the old extra mattress on the ground in Gage's room. Frankly, he was getting sick of the constant smell of sweat, metal, and plastic that was embedded into every nook and cranny of the small space. Keith figured that Gage's room served as a personal mini-gym, one that probably carried diseases and molds that he didn't care to wait around to discover for himself.

Escape has always been an elusive concept to Keith. Unlike his teammates, he, although he refused to admit it aloud, often stumbled when it came to executing the art of stealth. It wasn't uncommon for him to give up, succumb to impatience, and blow his cover just to feel the rush of a sprint rather than the cramps of a crawl. Keith considered these shortcomings of his as he moved slow, agonizingly slow, inching across the floor on all fours towards the door, hoping to put his worst skill to use. Gage snored loudly as he tried to crawl past the alien, and Keith had to duck to protect his head from a wrecking ball of a swinging foot that weighed probably twenty pounds on its own.

_I'm not cut out for this_, he grumbled inwardly.

Nevertheless, he managed to scramble his way out of the door and stand up with what was left of his dignity. With each step he took, however, the metal croaked beneath him, making him wince with every movement.

Suddenly, the floor shrieked beneath his boot, a blood-curdling cry reverberating through the shack's metal interior. _That would have woken anybody up!_ he cursed himself.

Then he realized that Gage's snoring had stopped.

It wouldn't be long until one of them stepped out of their rooms, asking him about what in the galaxy he was doing. If he was caught escaping under their noses, what would they do to him? Would they make him stay for longer? Would they interrogate him? Would they turn him in to the Intergalactic Protectorate? Sure, he's had run-ins with the authorities before—too many times, one might argue—but he couldn't afford those mishaps, not anymore. He couldn't get caught, but he _needed_ to get back to the Blades, even if it meant sneaking out, even if it meant risking far too much.

Lungs in his throat, he listened intently. His feet were cemented to the floor. Sweat trickled to his brow.

But his eyes darted around instinctively, automatically, because stealth or not, Keith could tell when someone was sneaking up on _him_.

He whipped around in search of answers, stance positioned for an uppercut. But instead of facing an assailant, he saw nothing at all. The hallway was empty.

"_Zip?"_

Well, not exactly.

Keith let out a breath of relief. A robo-ant had managed to scare the wits out of him. "Hey Zipper," he whispered. Gage's snoring returned. Nobody else entered the hallway. "What're you doing?"

"_Zee-za,"_ Zipper replied, cocking its head before delicately turning around, metal legs squeaking and shifting quietly. It was carrying a toolbox on its back. The kritonza looked away, down the hallway, towards the back door, and began walking towards it with muted steps. It had somewhere else to be.

But he couldn't help but feel that he was supposed to follow suite.

"_Zap-zap?"_ Zipper seemed to ask him as it peered behind itself. "_Coming?"_ it seemed to say.

Keith stood idle for a moment, hesitation swaying him back and forth.

* * *

The smell of gasoline hit his nose like a brick as Keith followed Zipper towards the crash-site.

It didn't take long for him to realize what the kritonza was doing out here. Sparks sputtered out from behind the main mid-section of the pod Keith arrived oh-so-elegantly in. He furrowed his brows, observing that the canopy was no longer half-buried into the ground, but shining proudly in the moonlight, its previously jagged edges now refurbished with the evidently new polycarbonate glass. The wings that were blown off in the crash were welded to either side of the pod's dented exterior. Scraps of titanium fused in jigsaw patterns all over the surface, hiding the spaces where the aluminum had peeled away.

Haphazard work, but work nonetheless.

The deep hum of a laser welding power supply throbbed slowly away into the night air. In its stead, the pulsing bass of hip-hop music pounded at his chest. "Oh, hey Keith!" the welder waved over to him, face protected by a well-weathered helmet.

_Raeni's work, _he finally understood.

"This was supposed to be a surprise." Her voice was distorted through the helmet. She stood up from her crouch, dusting off dirt and peering suspiciously at an oil stain on her polyester canvas overalls, black and hardy and much, much too big for her frame. She lifted the face of the helmet up, ash and dirt marring her cheeks. "Looks like Zipper here can't keep a secret," she sighed, as she took the toolbox off of Zipper's back. The kritonza cocked its head, confused, but scampered back to the shack upon further orders from its master.

"You're fixing my pod?" Keith wondered out loud.

It was impossible. There was no way she could possibly have put together a ship that was literally blasted to smithereens and—

"Yes, sir!" Raeni declared with a cheeky grin. "As you can see, I've replaced the canopy and reinforced it with a layer of shock-suppressive superfine glass to prevent it from breaking and endangering the pilot in the event of another crash," she recited. "The previous engines were unsalvageable, since they exploded to bits about ten minutes post-crash. In their stead, I will be using the engines from our own pod. I have yet to find out whether or not the engines can interface correctly with this pod, since the original tech is very," she paused, "unique, and requires a great deal of time and attention to understand and work with." Keith noticed that her words, like her posture, were suddenly very straight, like that of a soldier. It was familiar to him, but extremely uncharacteristic of her.

"I see," he replied, running his fingers across the weld lines, still a bit warm. "So I guess you've been doing this for a while, huh?"

She laughed, shaking her head as though it was hard to remember when she had started. "Three years, at least to my knowledge," she said, peeling off her gloves and swiping sweaty tendrils of hair away from her forehead.

"Only three years?" he asked.

"You're still trying to figure out where I came from, aren't you, grumpy?" she sneered.

Keith's hand curled against the titanium plates. "I'm not grumpy, and I don't care where you came from."

"Mm-hm," she leaned forward, hands akimbo. "Alrighty then, _Keith_, if you're gonna stop asking stupid questions, why don't you be useful and help me out?" she demanded.

He sighed. Helping wasn't really his thing. "I guess it's the least I could do," he said, defeated, accepting the slap of a wrench into his hand…

"That's the spirit!" she punched him playfully in the chest (which hurt a little harder than he cared to admit), laughing until her welding helmet fell back in front of her face.

… Besides, the faster they worked, the faster he could get out of there.

* * *

_Vrummm_, the pod's engines thrummed awake. Lights and virtual screens and dashboards unfolded across his field of vision, vibrations of energy coursing so powerfully that Keith could feel it through the pilot seat.

"It works," he mumbled to himself, flicking switches and analyzing stabilizers. Everything was back in order; just like new. "It actually works."

"WA-HOO!" Keith heard Raeni's muffled howl of victory from outside the cockpit. With a press of a button, the canopy unfolded, and Raeni's effervescent smile came into view. The wind brushed his cheeks, making him shiver, but she didn't seem to mind the cold. "We did it!" she cheered on.

"Guess so," he said, awash with a mix of relief, surprise, and gratitude.

"I told you I'm a damn good mechanic," she scrunched her nose.

Keith's gaze turned to his hands. He listened intently to the EDM hip-hop, foreign languages mingling in rap, blasting from her speaker. "I never had the chance to apologize before, but, I want to say that I'm sorry," she cocked her head quizzically, as confused as Zipper had been, "for shooting at you, I mean," he said with a shrug.

"Oh," she giggled, eyes suddenly alight with realization, "it's alright. Besides, I'm the one who started shooting you up the moment you got out of your ship."

"That was a dirty move, you know."

"That 'dirty move,'" she slurred, "was what saved you from getting crushed beneath your own pod, which, by the way, has the most unusual tech I've ever seen," and then her voice lost its giddiness, the bright persona swapped in a blink to something serious, almost as sinister as the significance of her subsequent words. "Galra tech."

Keith's stomach flipped when her eyes trapped his. It was only a matter of time before she'd discover who he worked with. And with that big brain of hers, he reckoned it would only take a few minutes. _Damn it! What do I do? I have to throw her off my back somehow._

"Listen, Raeni," he grabbed her hand, but she didn't even flinch. "Nobody can know who I am. I could…" his tongue turned to cotton, "... _You_ could get hurt."

The girl scoffed. "I know that. But I'm not telling anyone about you to save my own skin, _or _yours, frankly. I have a family to protect. That's all I care about. Why do you think I was shooting at you when you got here?" and right there, Keith realized she was only half-robot; she was half-human.

He nodded in agreement.

"To think I actually believed you were a badass martial artist… and that there were other humans out there in space," she said weakly. She slung her hands over the edge of the cockpit, hugging the metal close. "I guess you're gonna leave now, right?"

"That was the plan," Keith answered. Guilt trickled over his skin. She'd believed that there were more people out there in space, when in fact the only people were the other Paladins.

"I can't say I'm not disappointed. I mean, you're the first human I've met in seven years."

_"Sev'n years, Erin. Sev'n years!"_

"Yeah, I heard."

Raeni looked up suddenly. As though she was electrocuted.

Then he realized what he'd just confessed to.

It wasn't his fault, in all honesty. Overhearing Gage and Erin's conversation wasn't _meant _to happen, but it did. Right after they waved Raeni off to bed; to the room she stayed in, shut away from the rest of the world, the way she remained for the past seven years. They must've thought he was asleep when they were talking. But on that crumpled, dusty mattress? He couldn't sleep for a second. Of course he had heard them talk about the human girl they protected for seven whole years.

"I-I gotta go," Keith stumbled. "I shouldn't take up more of your time." There was no need to get involved in their personal affairs. The decision was obvious—leave.

… _but…_

Raeni was looking past him. He only noticed she was when she blinked her attention back to his eyes. The smile returned. That same, brilliant, blinding teeth. "Yes, sir!"

"Don't call me 'sir.'"

"Sheesh! Okay, grumpy."

"I'm outta here."

She threw her head back, laughing to the stars, pride bounding out of her with each guffaw. "I hope I never see you again, Keith Kogane. For both of our sakes!"

He rolled his eyes when the canopy closed. Even so, he couldn't help but chuckle to himself before running the launch protocols.

She watched him take off. She even watched until he was hundreds of miles away from the moon. And Keith couldn't help but wonder if he'd just saved them all, or condemned her to return to her life away from her kind, her life away from her home.

Had he left her behind?

_"So what do you suggest we do? Tell her the truth, just like that? Do you even know what that means?"_

Back and forth, he found himself swaying again. Was it right to just abandon her like that? Erin and Gage are her alleged family, now. But she must have had human parents. Does she remember them? Does she remember Earth? Even as these questions ebbed and flowed, what could he do? Steal her away to meet the Paladins? Maybe figure out a way for her to return home? Even just find out how she got here in the first place?

But Keith didn't do any of that. Instead, he set his coordinates for the Blade of Marmora's nearest base, and made a beeline for it, reveling in the new engines.

* * *

Once again, thank you so much for supporting and reading through this! Sorry that this ended up being the same writing as before.

Thanks again, guys!

~AVA


	5. GENESIS-FRAG:ONE

**WOW GUESS WHO'S BACK. Cause how else am I gonna spend the quarantine?**

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

GENESIS-FRAG:ONE

Alpha-HYDROGEN

The sound of rain pouring from the sky was the first thing she remembered. Nature hushing at her gently. Constant and soft, like the hum of an engine. Water and mud drenched her skin, hair, and clothes. Dirt underneath her nails. Some of her nails missing. She turned onto her back, and looking up, she could see the needles of rain crashing down, how stars would appear if she zoomed past them.

But here, she was still. The stars were falling around her.

When they asked her what was wrong, she didn't really know what to say. They asked her if she was in any pain, but she realized that she wasn't. Her head spun a bit, and her vision was rather wonky. Maybe a little tired. Just a little. But no pain.

Something trickled down her cheeks, but she couldn't tell whether it was tears or the rain.

A wet, muddy smile. Rain still pouring hard and harsh against her eyelids. Furiously blinking the sting away.

"I can't feel my legs."

* * *

**LOL so I'm back on my bs gonna try and make this take off again because re-obsession is a real thing. Reviews, as always, very much appreciated because I am in love with criticism.**

**More importantly, STAY SAFE GUYS and hope you guys enjoy the story as we wait out COVID-19. Wash ya hands and stay inside 3**

**~ AVA**


	6. RAENI-004

**Whoops forgot to throw in the previous "chapter" so here's chapter 4 again :)**

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-004

RAENI

The ship was out of sight within a few ticks.

Raeni let her waving hand fall to her side, and as she did, she wondered if that was the last time she'd meet anyone like herself ever again.

The thought was unnerving. For as long as she could remember, the only human she saw was the one she saw in the mirror. The only skin, eyes, hair, arms, hands, and _legs_ she recognized were her own. But Keith was different. Darker. Colder. A shadow of what she thought all humans were like.

She shook him out of her head.

Her home wasn't meant to be seen by the outside world. G.E. Mech was hidden in a pocket of spacetime, invisible to the eye and elusive to the radar. Specific coordinates and instructions were needed to find it, and even then, Gage and Erin were notably prudent in choosing the lucky few visitors that graced Raeni's home over the past seven years. Either Keith's crash was just very, very, _very_ unusual happenstance, a freak accident, or a predetermined decision.

Raeni's heart squeezed hard, pressing against her ribs.

"_I mean, you're the first person I've met in seven years!"_

"_Yeah, I heard."_

But how?

Pain sparked from her joints as Raeni wrung her fingers together.

As if on cue, the tinkling bells of the shack's door rang shrill in her ear, louder than she expected. Raeni turned to see Gage and Erin running at her, the former heaving a shirt over his burly muscles and the latter rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Raeni!" Erin exclaimed, embracing the girl in a deathlike grip. "Thank the universe, you're okay!"

"Mmf, 'course I mm," she managed, her voice muffled by Erin's warm arms.

"For'a minute thar, thought' you'd runoff with the assassin-lookin' kid," Gage grumbled. "Thought we'd lost ya fer good."

Raeni's breath tangled in her throat.

It wasn't like the thought hadn't crossed her mind when she was with Keith. Find a way home. Back to Earth. Learn about all the technologies across the universe, instead of trying to make the best out of the scraps she had on this little moon with this little family. Find her _real_ family instead.

Toes curling.

"Now, why would I do that, ya big dumb-dumb?" Raeni laughed. "You really think I'd ditch you guys for someone I'd met for only a quintant?"

"Hm, to be fair, he was kinda pretty," Erin slipped a wink at her, Gage scoffing in response.

"Yeah, that's exactly the prollem. Too pretty to be a real man!" he threw a fist to his chest with pride.

"At least _he _can put up a good fight," Raeni jeered. "The last time we had a wrestling match, you started crying!" It was their tradition—wrestling matches. Nothing serious, but nothing silly, either. She enjoyed them. They made her feel something deep inside. Maybe it was the thrill of throwing a punch, or maybe it was just their bruised-knee kind of love. Something in the rust of the workshop tables, something hard to pinpoint, but something she knew she would miss anyways.

"Pfft, _not_ true," Gage grumbled.

"Besides, your place is right here," Erin said. "With us."

Raeni watched as Erin tapped Gage's shoulder, offering him that knowing, pitying, smile she always seemed to wear.

She'd miss that too.

* * *

THE NEXT NIGHT they decided to eat good. Erin and Raeni protested against the healthier dishes that Gage insisted on preparing, complaining that it was much too expensive and unsatisfying to eat well. Gage, however, needed his protein. It was a hearty meal of Kiplu grains, a thick slice of a Haxornian beskut (that was a bit stale after storage in the turbo-freezer for several phoebs), and various smalltrees from vacuum-sealed packaging. Sort of homemade. Sort of frozen. A compromise.

"Isn't it great?" said Gage, shoveling the food into his mouth.

"You've really outdone yourself this time."

"Awh, shucks."

"I still like frozen pasta," Raeni said as she ate another spoonful. She savoured it, relishing in the different flavors and spices that Gage somehow learned to master over the years.

"We should do this more often," said Erin. "When we have the money, of course."

"See, tha' right there's our problem. We're always thinkin' about the money n' never—"

The fuzz of incoherent radio noise rang through the air. Raeni turned her head towards the comms, the blinking red light on the wall indicating what she knew was an unexpected transmission (judging from Gage and Erin's expressions).

"Prolly just ol' Inker ringin' us up for another job," said Gage with a nonchalant shrug.

"We're eating right now," Erin replied. "He can wait."

But when the fuzz of the radio endured, the red light flashing still, Erin had stopped moving altogether. Raeni watched as her chewing slowed to a silent stop. White noise crackled against her eardrums.

"_This is_—" a cut, _"_—_O"_ another cut, _"_—_please."_

Before Raeni could even part her lips, Gage stood to deny the transmission. He jogged the last few steps before pressing the button, even though the comms dashboard was only about five meters away from the dinner table. Raeni didn't miss the flash of concern when he snapped a look at Erin. He ate faster after that.

"That didn't sound like Inker," said Raeni. From the few times she'd heard it, Raeni knew Inker's voice was high-pitched and squeaky, like a rubber duck heaving air. But this voice was different. It was thick and gruff, like how Gage used to sound before he switched to e-cigarettes. Smoky and sad.

"Mighta been his friend, Philly. Don't worry 'bout it, kid," Gage said quickly.

"Man!" Erin cried out, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her belly. "I'm stuffed! I gotta work all those calories off. How about a wrestling match before bed? What d'ya say, Raeni?"

Raeni frowned. "But we just ate, Erin, n' I hate getting cramps!"

"How about we do some stargazin' instead?" Gage suggested. "Y'know, for ol' times sake."

* * *

THE SKIES WERE CLEAR that night, which was quite unusual given that their little moon had a strange atmosphere with a thing for overcast morning, noon, and night. Erin set down blankets against the cold metal roof of the shack.

"Alright, everyone settled in?" she asked as she laid down beside Raeni, who was subsequently sandwiched by her guardians.

"Yup," she answered from beneath the polyester-kipin blanket. They couldn't afford real Franoxian bird feather duvets. But she had this blanket for as long as she could remember. It was warm enough for her. "Can we play the constellation game again?"

"I thought you hated that game," said Erin, "We haven't played that in a long time since you'd always complain about it when you were little. You couldn't figure out why it was important to look for shapes and things in the sky."

"Yeah—but that was when I was _little_."

"She's a big girl, so I bet she can handle even the constellation game. Right, Raeni?" Gage teased, elbowing her in the ribs.

"Hey!" Raeni let out a burst of laughter, "I can beat both of you at this game with my _eyes closed!_ Let's see now…" she trailed off as her wide, round eyes darted across the deep darkness of the night sky. Clusters of white sparkles danced across her vision, diamonds flickering against the blackened carbon. She used to pretend that her eyes could really draw lines between the stars, that if she tried really, really, hard and focused all her energy into it, tinier stars would appear in the wake of her gaze, bringing the constellations to life right in front of her.

"I see a flower!" Erin exclaimed, pointing out into the sky. "Right over there, petals and all! I'd like to see you two beat that."

"I see a shoe on'the left," said Gage, waving his fingers in the direction of his constellation. "Take a look at HOP-1087 over there, just go up n' round our sweet lil' Oomah star and _BAM!_ There's yer shoe. It's even got some shoelaces all tied up n' a neat little bow."

"Try hard," said Erin, but she grumbled quietly about how good of a catch that was.

Raeni continued to stare, carefully tracing out the shape of— "A handprint!"

"Huh?"

"Well, a human handprint, I guess. One that looks like mine," she said, holding her hand up against the sky, moving her fingers in just the right way, allowing the stars to trace them. She had to squint, but it was there.

"Yeah, I see it!" said Gage. "Y'all have weird limbs, y'know? Why you need five fingers, anyway? All ya need is three and a thumb."

Erin shuffled in the sheets beside her. She was silent for a bit. "That's an interesting one. You always pointed out things like screwdrivers and wrenches and computer parts. What made you pick this one?"

Raeni tilted her head as she pulled her hand away, the constellation forming as they always did in her mind's eye. "Dunno."

* * *

"What the _quiznaaak_," Raeni yawned, stretching into her chair. She'd been working on programming a new code for Zipper. As cute as he was, Gage refused to interact with him unless he spoke the common tongue. Unfortunately, coding wasn't her strong suit. She was always much better with her hands than her head. "The string is so clear, so why am I getting the wrong output?" she mumbled to herself, swabbing her thumb against her tongue before flipping through her fifteen-pound textbook. It was several feebs old, and subsequently quite outdated, like most of her other textbooks. Though she understood the necessity of the coding language, she just couldn't differentiate her object comparisons from her object operations. Her eyelids were drooping, her head was pounding, and her stomach was growling loud enough for her computer to shake. _Time for some pasta._

As she stood onto her feet, Raeni bent down to address a few squeaks at her knees. She decided to leave the microchip in for the rest of the night. It felt good to not worry about whether or not her heel would hit the ground in sync with the forward swing of her hip. It felt good to not tighten bolts and replug wiring like clockwork. It felt good to have her legs continue to work, and work well, for such a long time. Indulgent? Maybe. Worth it? Absolutely.

Raeni stood straight, lifting her leg into the air perfectly parallel to the floor, and bent her knee back and forth. With a few calf raises and knee ups for good measure, smiling giddily with each rep, Raeni walked out of her room and made her way downstairs. A few swings around the walls and a couple skips against metal floors, and she was in front of their wardrobe-sized freezer at the back of the kitchen.

"Hm, what am I feeling like today?" she thought aloud as she heaved the doors open, the cool breeze tussling her silver hair. Their freezer was full of microwave foods. Most of it was pasta for Raeni, though. Tomato penne, fettuccine alfredo, twelve-cheese macaroni, lasagna, ziti, tortellini with shiitake mushrooms—pasta from Earth, or rather, knockoffs of it. Cheese was artificial, tomatoes were green Ufu fruits, and the shiitake mushrooms were just common gasidio fungi. Still, it was the closest thing to Earth pasta that she could find. _Ravioli. I want ravioli_, she thought, only to realize that there were none left.

Raeni's heart sank. Keith had eaten the last one.

That day had seemed like a dream. He was there one minute and gone the next. After finally meeting a human for the first time, she thought she'd have a much more inquisitive reaction. In some ways, she regretted not asking him things that she's always wanted to know about Earth.

She absently grabbed spaghetti from the fridge, automatically peeling back the lid like she had hundreds of times before. _What are the people like? How much has changed since my time there? _Into the microwave. Three dobashes._ What's Earth pasta like? When did I start liking pasta? What am I doing all the way out in space? Can I go home? Do I have a family? Do you have a family?_ She realized Keith never even touched his food. _Could you stay a little longer?_

_BEEP-BEEP_.

Startled, she quickly opened the microwave, steam burning her eyes. Yet, still—

_BEEP-BEEP. _A high pitched ring. White static.

_Not the microwave_, Raeni thought, and turned instead to the desks across the dinner table. _Comms_.

It was a rule that the comms were off-limits to her, and could only be answered and handled by Gage and Erin. Every time she came five steps within the range of the dashboard, she was scolded and told to back away. Gage used to tell her that the radiation from the signals would give her permanent brain damage. Being the makeshift communication system it was, Raeni believed it as a child. This worked for a while, but only for so long.

_BEEP-BEEP._

Everyone was asleep. Even Zipper was recharging. There was nobody to catch her, otherwise. Yes, she might get caught in the morning, but for Raeni, that was a later-problem, and this was a now-problem. Besides, the beeping was starting to annoy her.

Creeping quietly towards the dashboard, Raeni gazed wildly at the blinking lights, flashing symbols, and different codes scattered amongst knobs, dials, and switches. She never had the chance to even look at the dashboard before, and now, it was almost overwhelming. There was an open, pocket sized notebook on the side, filled with various names and numbers. _CONTACTS, _scratched in Erin's handwriting. _Inker: ΤΦσ θξχ. Philly: Πᕛ⩔ρ⩀⧵⨉⫱._ Raeni peered at the larger code flashing across a small, red screen. _Unknown: 027_ᒛ_165_⨋_8282_.

Heart thrumming, knees quaking, Raeni stared at the code. She flipped through the unsurprisingly short contact list, and couldn't match it to a name. Frantic, she turned the pages over and around, hoping to find it somewhere. Just as she realized it wasn't written on any pages, the spine of the notebook gave away. Behind the binding, written on the inside of the spine—_There!_—was the code written in the finest print she'd ever seen, but scratched out with two lines. No name. No contact. Just the code.

"_Hello?"_ Static. _"Commander_—" Static._ "Anyone."_

And as the smell of her pasta carried through the room, as she thought about curling her toes, as she felt the ground beneath her feet, as she longed for new coding textbooks, as she remembered Keith's dark, even eyes, as she felt the vibrations of his pod blasting away, as her heart tumbled a thousand stories, beating harder and harder pumping blood and emotion and fear—_"Please"_— and thrill and hope she answered the comm with trembling hands.

"_Hello? Hello? Please, respond, over."_

Her voice was stuck. But maybe that was her own fault.

"_Galaxy Garrison to G.E. Mech, over."_

_Galaxy Garrison?_

"_This is Commander Oden, over."_

_Commander?_

"_Galaxy Garrison to G.E. Mech. Galaxy Garrison to G.E. Mech, please respond."_

Throat as dry as the moon, Raeni pressed the respond button, and croaked, "This is G.E.—"

Suddenly, Raeni felt herself shoved away from the dashboard. Her legs flew behind her to catch the fall, but the movement was so sudden that she toppled anyway, knocking down the chairs at the dinner table. A loud groan of pain tore from her lips as she gripped her side, dizziness warping her vision.

"_Quiznak_," she moaned, and looked up, only to see Erin standing tall above her, arms folded across her chest.

"What did you tell them?"

Head spinning, Erin splitting into two. Raeni repeated, "What did I tell them?"

Bad move.

Erin grabbed the front of her shirt, yanking her to her feet and holding her a breath away from her own face. "Do not make me ask you again." Raeni looked over Erin's shoulder, only to see Gage ending the comms, switching off the power, and tearing the spine of the notebook away. Erin shook her back into reality, and she quickly realized that she had never seen such anger before. Feline eyes burned into her own. "Answer me, Raeni."

And right then and there, Raeni saw what Erin had been hiding from her all these years. "I didn't say anything," she muttered.

"Let her go, Erin,"said Gage. "The guy didn't get anything. She's safe."

"Safe from what?" Pieces starting to come together. "What's going on? What's the Galaxy Garrison? Who's Commander Oden—"

Erin dropped her to the floor, and Raeni's ankles creaked from the impact. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with."

"What do you mean?" asked Raeni incredulously, brows furrowing, the most confused she'd ever been. An unfamiliar feeling. "They reached out to _us_. Why isn't that code in our main contacts? Who are they? Why are they calling and why didn't you answer them at dinner?"

Gage approached them, lending an arm to rest on Raeni's head as Erin paced across the room, a sheen of sweat across her blue skin. "Raeni, listen—"

She swabbed his hand away. "No, _you_ listen. You two have been acting really weird ever since Keith came here. You're hiding something, and you're going to tell me what it is." The shock and dismay that washed over Gage's rough features was almost enough to keep Raeni from pressing any further. Almost. "He heard you two talking about me."

"Kid, it was nothing." _Lies_. Raeni felt energy stir in her chest.

"All I've been able to do around here is fix things like toasters and remote controls and radios and _clocks_!" she cried, a sudden steely and foreign edge in her throat. Erin stood straight, crossing her arms and pursing her lips as though she'd eaten something sour. "There's something else that I need to do. Something else I _can_ do. There's gotta be more to me, and you _know_ what it is, don't you?"

And it all hit her like a sonic boom. Secrets. Old databases and outdated textbooks. No touching the comms. Not knowing where she came from. Not knowing who she was. Never wanting to find out. Ignorance—seven years of ignorance.

"Raeni, it was _nothing!_"

"Oh, yeah? Let's hear it, then. Go on."

Silence. Then—

"_We're_ the ones acting weird?" Erin finally said from across the room, leaning against the comms dashboard. "You're not gonna talk about how you suddenly seem like you're not from this moon anymore? Like you're an alien?" Her voice was unexpectedly soft.

Tears pricked Raeni's eye. Heat bubbled in her throat. Lungs sore and shivering. Tongue spitting a poison she never knew she had. "Well, maybe that's for the best."

Gage tried to cut in. "Listen, kid—"

"Would you quit calling me that?"

"But, you _are_ a kid!" Erin exclaimed, voice at the loudest Raeni could ever remember it being. "You are a child, and you know _nothing _about the universe! You don't know anything about other people, what they care about, what they do to protect who they love, and why they get hurt! What suddenly made you think that you don't belong right here? With _us_?" Erin accused, and only a fool would miss the hurt in her tone.

Raeni felt her eyes grow misty, breath shortening out. Every attempt at a deep breath was diced into hiccups.

Erin sneered at her. "It was that boy, wasn't it? You see one human and now you wanna see them all, yeah?" she said as she used her arms to form great circles of sarcasm in the air. "You don't even know what that means! You don't know why you're here, or where you really come from—y-you don't even know who you are!" She laughed, almost scoffing in disbelief. "My gamma, you don't know _shit_, Raeni!"

The tears were falling unbidden past her flushed cheeks, salty as they trickled between her pink lips. Feeling the rest of her body go numb, Raeni let her head fall, her gaze fixating on her boots. Gage might have been telling her to calm down, and Erin might have been yelling back at him, but none of it registered in Raeni's head. Her ears were ringing. The space behind her right eye ached.

"_Back to your trinkets, Raeni. Out of my sight."_

She watched herself mumble, "Yes, ma'am", before walking silently back to her room, Erin's last few words alone and repeating in her head, sharp and cruel as a dagger in her stomach.

* * *

∫∫∫∫eRROR_COMMS_HACK:::::GaLRa_INNER_SaNCTUM_HEaDQUaRTERS  
δ⨋⧸σΞ⩂⩍χΣ⩦ᑳΔἂοἜ⫱⩄⫝⫟⭊ᕗᕗᕗ⨌ο⩈⩭ψ⫖⫑⫴? ﾝﾞΨαᕗ

My Lord.

Speak, Lieutenant.

It appears that the girl has appeared.

[static] What girl?

The Earthling from two or so years ago.

You're going to have to be more specific than that, Lieutenant.

The one who was to be executed by the other Earthlings? Very young, maybe 15 Earth years of age at the time.

[static]

The one who discovered [unintelligible]

Ah, yes. _That_ girl.

[unintelligible]

So she is—

I'm afraid so, [static] [continued static]. Permission to speak freely, my Lord.

Granted.

Intelligence from the— [unintelligible] indicates that she was last seen speaking with the Red Paladin of Voltron.

You are certain?

Yes, my Lord.

I see. This will be— [static]. I take it that you know where she is?

Correct, sire. [unintelligible]

Well, you already know [static] must be done.

Of course. We are already working on it. Haggar is especially keen.

… you told Haggar before you told me?

F-Forgive me, my Lord. I just thought she'd want to—I-I'm sorry—

[static] You are to inform _me _first, Lieutenant. Especially regarding this girl. Is that [static] understood?

Y-Yes, my Lord.

Now get out of my sight.

R-Right, my Lord. _Vrepit sa_.

_Vrepit sa_.

* * *

Raeni collapsed onto her bed, gripping the sheets, groaning into her pillow, and flailing her legs till the metal of her shins dented the footboards.

"_You don't know _shit,_ Raeni!"_

How could Erin say that to her? _She_ was the one who kept her locked away from the rest of the world for the past seven years. Of course she didn't know shit! The only things Raeni knew were from the limited textbooks and databases that she had access too. She barely knew about people of other races in the universe. She could only recognize some of the other planets and stars in this galaxy, but beyond that, outer space was virtually dark and empty.

Maybe she should've just tried harder before. A conversation about her past was a conversation that never caught flame, but she could have coaxed Gage and Erin more before this all happened. Why hadn't she tried harder? Why hadn't she given just a moment of thought to her past? If she had just tried to learn about Earth, learn about humans, their space explorations, their missions, whatever contact they had with other species in the universe, she might have been able to find out something about herself. Somehow.

Raeni sighed, her breath hot against her cheeks as it filled her pillow. _Maybe it's my fault, after all._

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she whispered harshly in the dark. Sitting up abruptly, she screamed into the palms of her hands, ruffling her hair madly into achniwebs before jumping out of bed, kicking piles of shrieking copper and tin, punching craters into the steel walls of her cage, swiping her desk clean of the cross-dowels and well nuts and textbooks and blueprints of the scratched out dreams that kept her alive for the past seven years.

Panting now, she studied the room, a bigger mess than it was before, but better, somehow. But just as she was about to sit down, she realized she couldn't.

Her knees were stuck.

Frowning, she bent over to inspect the circuitry. At a glance, everything seemed to be in working order. But it didn't take long for her to figure out what wasn't.

_Microchip_.

She took the chip out, clammy fingers fumbling as she did. It was hot to the touch in her hands, and she yelped and blew at her fingers, tossing the chip between her palms until it was cooler. Fingertips burning, she held it up to eye level. Right in the middle of the piece was a swamp green liquid oozing out from within. Something must have blown from immediate, intense use. There were several components that would have to be removed and replaced, tasks that Raeni normally had no qualms about. But Olkari tech was different. It wasn't meant to be handled and corrected by ordinary people. Re-soldering this chip herself could just destroy it even further.

Sighing with defeat, she swabbed off some of the liquid with her thumb, wiping it away on her overalls before placing the chip back into her right leg. She flopped down to her spinning chair, not bothering to spin it once before turning towards her desk. She quickly took off her legs, throwing them onto the bed, decidedly not caring whether they broke or not. The chip was busted too. They weren't worth anything. Nothing in the room was worth anything at all.

She looked up out of her window, watching the night sky come into view as it always did every night of her life. In her mind's eye, she could still see Keith's pod crashing down to her moon. She could see the smoke. The fire. The doom. Foreign things.

Was the desire to go home really so bad?

She sighed, cheek in palm, gazing out towards the life she could have returned to. But just as she began daydreaming of how Earth looked, with purple, gunky trees, black oceans, and a red, fiery sky, a gentle hand found a place on her shoulder.

Stomach plummeting a mile a minute, Raeni whipped around, only to see the person she oh-so-wrongfully felt disquiet for before.

"Keith?" she breathed.

He smiled. Thick brows, shaggy hair, and eyes as deep as space itself. He wasn't dressed in the dark uniform he wore when he first arrived. Instead, he was wearing—_armor?_ White and red and black metal of impeccable design and quality, purple lines glowing on his shoulders and on his collar.

Confused, but nevertheless elated, Raeni looked past him to the closed door, hoping that he didn't trigger any unwanted attention. "What are you—" He pressed a finger to her lips.

"We don't have much time," he whispered, inches away from her face. Raeni found herself blinking hard to focus on his features.

"Time for what?" she mumbled against his finger.

"We're getting out of here."

"What?"

"We're leaving. Right now." His hand reached down to her wrist, gripping it a bit tighter than she'd expected. _Strange_, she thought.

"Wait, but why?"

"There's no time to explain. Come on, get up."

"Keith—"

"Get. Up." He ordered, and she scoffed. Was he joking?

"Buddy, if you haven't forgotten, I can't exactly do that as easy as you can," she gestured downwards. His brows flinched, as if he was trying to suppress what appeared to be shock. "Get me my legs from over there."

When he brought them to her, he asked, "You do want to come, right?"

Raeni sighed. "Integrate."

She thought for a moment, absently staring at the recognition and response connectors attached at her thighs, pseudo-synapse transmission replicators and nanosensors blinking with approval as they became operational again, although now it took a bit longer than before. The microchip Erin gave her wasn't working out so well after all. It wouldn't be long until it completely burned out.

This is what she was wishing for, right? To be able to go home, and then to see the rest of the universe, to explore and discover something greater. Maybe she could make new friends, maybe she could find her family. Erin may not think that the past matters, but she had to be wrong. The past makes the future. Her past determined her future.

She _had_ to know where she came from.

This was her last chance to find out.

"Yes, sir, I do," she recited.

* * *

"Come on," Keith said as they ran through the cold night air. "The pod is just over here." Raeni didn't understand why he didn't land it near the shack, but maybe he knew the engines would wake Gage and Erin, the universe forbid. Still, something deep inside her itched.

"Keith?" she asked, following him further and further away from the shack.

"What now?"

Dizziness slapped her hard and strong. "What's my name?"

Raeni held her breath, hardly recognizing that she had stopped walking. Her knees were trembling. In another situation, she might have laughed. Either the microchip was acting up again, or for the first time in her life, she was scared.

Keith froze, but didn't bother to turn around to face her.

Raeni's neck craned downwards. "There is no pod, is there?" she mumbled, more to herself than to him. Her fingers tried to wring out the chaotic mix of anticipation, fear, and the slightest touch of hope that was more of a prayer than anything else. It had to be him, right…?

"Clever child."

Behind Keith's voice was another—raspy, dry, like nails on a chalkboard. Raeni felt every hair on her body rise in terror.

"I suppose I underestimated you. Again."

He paced towards her, eyes glowing purple like the lines on his armor. "You've grown," he said, grabbing Raeni's chin with uncaring force. "Your hair and eyes are different. Time and space behave differently here. Two or three Earth years can feel nearly twice as long in a place like this." Raeni must have made a face, for he replied, "You must have thought you were stuck here for—how many years?"

"S-Seven…" _Why did I even _answer_ that? And why in the galaxy aren't I running? Run, idiot!_ But when she tried, her feet stood stubbornly in the ground. Knees locked in place.

The microchip was burnt out. Couldn't move.

"Pitiful," the voices cackled together, white teeth glimmering under moonlight, while Raeni mourned her decision to keep using the microchip instead of just reverting to her old-fashioned thought-action lagging protocols. At least they worked. But now it was too late. _Quiznak_. "By the decisions you've made in the past ten dobashes, I'd say that you haven't gotten much wiser, either."

"_You are a child, and you know _nothing _about the universe!"_

"Enough of this nonsense. You'll be coming with me," he said, grabbing her arm and turning to drag her.

"No, I won't."

The imposter looked back at her, contempt across his features. "You put up quite a fight way back then. I suppose you've still got it in you."

"W-Who are you?"

"You don't remember?" he sighed. "I'm almost disappointed you've forgotten my voice," and after a moment of silence, his hand shot towards her neck, nails gripping hard into the flesh. One dobash breathing, the next, gasping for oxygen. His fingers clenched so hard that Raeni was certain she'd die right there. Her feet floated off the ground, her jaw crushing into his knuckles. "Still don't want to come?"

Nostrils flared, colors blossoming across her vision, but barely whispering still: "No, sir."

"_You don't know _shit,_ Raeni!"_

"A fool as always, I see."

The ground hit her hard when she fell. More figures came into view behind what was now a lizard-like creature, tall and armored like knights. Just before her vision gave away fully, she looked up, only to notice that her bionic legs were still standing upright on the ground, strangely alive. They stood still and cold; oblivious, pilotless.

* * *

**Et voila will work on this for so long tbh STAY SAFE STAY INSIDE WILL DO MA BEST TO ENTERTAIN 3**

**~ AVA**


	7. KEITH-005

**I HAVEN'T BEEN HERE IN FOREVER. IM SORRY. I will bust out the big chapter by next week I swear on my life 3 Enjoy some Keef growing up in BoM :)**

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-005

KEITH

Keith approached the Blade of Marmora's nearest base, Olfai, a few dobashes away from Raeni's moon and towards the outskirts of the Scyzen quadrant. It was one of their smallest bases, only a handful of Blades guarding it at any given time.

Eyeing the spacecraft marshalls on the landing strip, he adjusted the makeshift flaps and slats, put down alarmingly creaky landing gear, and pulled back the throttle. As the wheels padded the strip, he pushed down the yoke, and almost immediately, the craft lurched to the left, Keith's stomach plummeting with it. _Too good to be true, huh?_ Heaving throttles back and smashing the brakes, he was able to slow it to a soft bump on the interior portion of the strip. Breathing a sigh of relief, Keith sat back in the pilot seat, stunned that he even made it back.

"Hey!" a muffled yell from outside disrupted his thoughts. "You almost crashed. Exit the craft!"

Keith pressed the button to open the canopy, but it barely moved a few inches. He doubled over to speak through the narrow opening. "Sorry, I hit a few roadbumps on my trip," he said to the marshall, who eyed the craft from end to end.

"I see, now get out," he demanded, "Kolivan wishes to speak with you."

"Kolivan's here?"

"Yes, and be prepared to explain those so-called 'roadbumps' you encountered."

* * *

Kolivan was standing in front of the dashboard in the controls room, hands behind his back, still as a monolith.

"It's good to see you," Keith said as he entered, gazing up at the digital readings and documents laid out on the dashboard. "What did you want to speak with me about?"

Kolivan, however, did not turn to face him. "Mission report."

_Oh, right_. These details, however minor, were critical to a Blade's work. Keith understood this, but it wasn't uncommon for him to forget these little rules and rituals. "Scouting Mission Arsenic dash 4833," he recited, "Observed no signs of Galra activity in the Kilio system of the Scyzen quadrant. Planets Organza, Pnein, and Camjar have reported no signs of activity in the past three phoebs. Given the Galra's tendency towards the Karthulian system and the whole Arkaan quadrant, it is assumed that the Galra will not gather in the Kilio system in the coming phoebs. Zone cleared."

"Good. And the status of the craft?"

That was an unusual request. "What?"

"The status of the craft."

Keith inwardly cringed. _Quiznak_. "Mission craft 0-29 met with a severe crash on a deserted moon off of planet Organza. Navigation readings were incorrect due to hardware failure."

"... and?"

Keith hesitated before saying, "The people that I met on the moon helped me rebuild my craft."

"So they met you, they talked to you, saw your face and your Blades uniform?" Kolivan finally turned to face him. "Do you know what you've done?"

"I didn't mean to—"

"And yet you _did_," he affirmed. "Do you not understand the severity of the situation? Did you forget that our secrecy as an organization is the only thing that has kept us mobilized for ten thousand years?"

"No!" Keith protested. "It was a freak accident, and I didn't even tell the people on that moon anything about the Blades or who I am. I didn't let them come anywhere near us for the very reason of maintaining secrecy!"

Kolivan frowned. "How many?"

"Three."

"Race?"

"Two Caeterans and—and a human."

"You do not know them? Even the human?"

"No, sir."

"But you lied to them all, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

An overwhelming silence encompassed the room. Keith felt his sweaty palms rub beneath his gloves. He watched as Kolivan turned back towards the dashboard, following his gaze to the long list of zones yet to be cleared, Galra stations to be raided, and rebel organizations to contact—an endless amount of work to do.

"I understand your desire to take part in our work here. I have no doubt in your skills in combat, nor in your quick thinking, nor in your devotion to the mission. However, Keith, you still have much to learn as a Blade. You are too temperamental, emotional. You always put the man before the mission—"

"I don't!" Keith exclaimed, louder than he should have.

Kolivan regarded him coolly, eyes leveled with disappointment. "It is not my duty to enforce this knowledge upon you. It is _you _that must be willing to absorb it and use it. You will become a true Blade when you understand this."

"But I _do_ understand. I just—it was—I made a mistake," Keith confessed. He looked away, fists clenched. "It won't happen again."

"No, it will not. I will make sure of that," Kolivan said as he walked past him, towards the door. "Remember, Keith, we cannot afford mistakes or accidents. This is a burden we must endure. This is who we are. As such, I trust you will take the correct course of action should you encounter_ a few people_ on a future mission." A pause, and Kolivan tilted his head towards the corner of the room. "It is never pretty, but every Blade has unclean hands. Remember who you are."

And as Kolivan left the boardroom, doors sliding shut, Keith stood quietly. The alerts for new rebel movement and communication frequencies beeped from the dashboard.

Tomorrow, he would train harder.

* * *

**DFADFSDF YEAH THIS IS SO SHORT I apologize truly but I swear the chapter on Raeni next week will be whack wahooooooo! I'm rewatching Voltron again to help me figure out a good timeline, and honestly even though writer's block is my default position I've actually truly siNCERELY been unable to write anything of quality recently UNTIL I had a conversation with my sister and now I think this story has a good solid plot that's a bit uncharacteristic of the Voltron fandom ;)) We'll see how it goes. I have a plan. We're back in gear.**

**Thanks friends 3 See y'all soon as hek**

**~AVA**


	8. RAENI-006

**I'VE DONE IT. I'VE FINALLLLY DONE IT. Took so much thinking you guys I can't even lie, like I had to figure out my entire freakin' plot to write this chapter because dang this story is _really_ taking a turn from your typical Voltron trope ;))**

**Enjoi !**

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-006

RAENI

The fighting rules were simple.

One, the obvious one, do not seriously harm your opponent. This was a fight between the people they loved. This was light fun; boxer shuffles, not a fight to the death. A family feud, like.

Two, no weapons. An unfair advantage, of course. This was about using the brauns you were born with (Raeni, of course, was an exception to rule number two).

Three, no hard feelings. This was a game, not a war.

Bliss overcame her as the bionic prosthetics connected with Raeni's thighs. She shivered a little at it. She always did. There was some kind of special feeling that came with the connection. The metal became a part of her. All of that wiring and circuitry and pounds and pounds of metal became translated into _her_. Even so, it was all kind of complicated. Sensing the world around her was like trying to remember a dream. Half there, broken bits and pieces that eventually fade away into blotches of absolute nothingness. There was no pain when the prosthetics broke for the first time. There was never any pain. But she could feel the breeze. She knew when she hit something hard.

She knew when she threw an effective leg drop. So did Gage.

"Damn it, Raeni! Mah neck is still achin' from last time!" he cried as Raeni pressed her leg deeper across Gage's shoulders.

"Yeah, right! No excuse is gonna get you outta this one!"

With one hand, he grabbed the leg that trapped him down to the ground. The fingers were hard and tight and they yanked her off by the cloth of her pants in a single motion. She hit the ground hard, the dirt of the moon invading her half-down silver hair. Sand and rocks crunched between her gritted teeth, and she spat them out, thick and loud, before standing back up on her feet.

"You okay?" Raeni heard Erin call from afar.

"Who do you think I am?" she called back.

Bringing one foot back behind her, setting it gently onto the ground, Raeni watched her opponent. Gage was big, no doubt about it. It was only on several occasions that she was able to even win, since trying to bring him down was like trying to bring down a meteor. His burly muscles twitched underneath his tank top as he stepped side to side. Eyes shifting, blue brows furrowed, an inkling of a limp from a strained muscle in his left calf that Raeni _still _subconsciously turned a blind eye to. He leaned forward, already prepared for Raeni's lightning fast charge towards him. Her knees cranked before she leapt into the air, thrusting her arm out and onto Gage's chest. His feet flew out beneath him, and Raeni landed into bent knees as Gage landed flat on his back.

"Clear!" Erin exclaimed when Gage flopped on the ground.

"Ha! Take down number two!" Raeni laughed triumphantly. "You've gotten—"

A hearty roundhouse kick sent her spinning into the dirt, her fingers scraping out in an attempt to stop her roll. When she eventually managed to crawl onto all fours, a throbbing pain flared in her ribs. Her pride kept her from gripping them in agony.

"Sorry, what was that?" Gage's voice was distant and ringing.

"Seven years of training and this is all you've got? Come on, sweetie! Get up!" She could hear Erin's cries of encouragement, muffled through the sound of her racing heart. 'Seven years' jumped around her head, circling hot and urgent.

"It's been seven years?" she asked with a laugh. "Seems like only three!"

"More like a few days, kiddo!"

_Wish he'd stop calling me that_. "Gosh, I've been here for seven years," she dragged herself onto one knee. Her head hurt. Maybe she hit her head.

"What're you goin' on about?" Gage laughed. "You've been workin' hard! And by the bruise on ma shoulder, I think it's payin' off!"

She planted her palms on the ground, her vision splitting in two. "Hey," the floor breathed beneath her fingers, "You guys wouldn't lie to me, right?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, family doesn't lie to family, right?"

Erin stepped forward. "What are you talking about?"

Raeni felt something tug in her chest. She couldn't reach it, but it bothered her. "How did I get here?" Yet her question was met with silence.

Her foster parents stood before her, avoiding her gaze.

"Please, talk to me," Raeni climbed to her feet, even though her knees felt like jello. "I want to know."

They never met her gaze.

Frustrated now, Raeni marched to Gage. "Hey!" she exclaimed as she stared straight up towards Gage's chin. "Why didn't you let me answer the comms? Why haven't you ever told me about who I am?" she was yelling now. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Silence.

A foreign feeling rushed through her blood, forcing her teeth to clench and her jaw to tighten and her fists to curl and with tears pricking her eyes she threw the hardest, steel-denting kick— "I hate you!"— she could muster into his shin. She burst towards Erin, screaming—_You've never screamed before_—, shoving a hard back elbow to her cheek, knocking her straight to the ground.

But when Raeni finally felt her breath slow and the heat in her blood dissolve, she realized that Gage was standing in the exact same position he'd been in just a minute ago. She looked down towards Erin, and her throat squeezed as she saw her frozen body on the ground, hands akimbo, like a fallen statue; a toy soldier on a gameboard. _She looks so sad._ Yet what scared Raeni the most was how she felt herself fall to the ground, shaking Erin's cold, stone-like shoulder and all she could ask was: "Who _am_ I?"

"You never asked."

Erin's lips hadn't moved. Raeni hesitated. "I did!"

"You did not," Raeni blinked, and found her hand shaking the shoulder of a child, no older than fourteen. Small, but bundled in furs and leathers. White skin. Clear, glassy eyes, blued like glacial waters. Snowflakes on her silver brows. _What are snowflakes?_ "Wake up, Raeni. You did not," she looked up, away from Raeni's gaze. "Get your facts straight. Everything is facts. Everything is mathematically plain. You know this, but you have forgotten, and you did not ask."

"What—what are you saying?" Raeni gripped her pulsing head. "I don't—I don't understand—" she turned this way and that, but Gage and Erin were gone. Her moon was gone. Instead, she was standing on what appeared to be a smashed aircraft, purple fires blazing near white beneath her boots. It was cold. Smears of blood decorated the canopy's glass, strands of pale hair plastered with it.

"You were content with your trinkets. You were content with your life," the child's response spared even a touch of warmth. "What made you question it?"

Raeni opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her voice bounced around in her head: Questions, questions. What's there to question? Everything is mathematically plain and simple. Gravity. Thermodynamics. Energy. Kinetics. Classical mechanics. Wave functions. Planck's constant. Who's Planck? The girl disappeared. Schrodinger's equation. Electron probability. Where do protons live? Quarks. Photons. Quantum fields. String theory. Nuclear forces. Protons. Electrons. Atoms. Cosmic dust.

Is that all there is?

Pain. Excruciating pain. Enough for a lifetime.

You did not ask, yet you ask now. Why?

"Wake up, Raeni. Wake up!"

It's just a bad dream. You're a smart girl. Just wake up. Wake up, Raeni.

Wake up! WAKE UP!

* * *

Panic jerked Raeni from her sleep. She swallowed, her throat dry and sore. The floor was icy against her cheek. Her eyes hazily focused on the gray wall a few feet away. A stench of chemicals and steel struck her senses, forcing her to sit up with a groan. Raeni scanned her room, neck aching as she looked this way and that. The walls were clean and sleek, and the floor vibrated softly like a humming machine. No door. There were only a few purple lines of lights to illuminate the room, but the pit in Raeni's stomach meant that she could see exactly where she was.

_A cell._

Her heart was pumping hard now. Just a few moments ago, she was at home. She was with Gage and Erin, and they—_oh yeah, the comms._ And then she cried, and then she went to her room, and then—_Keith_—and then she went outside, and then Keith, that voice, and then—

"Help," the word croaked painfully out of Raeni's throat like blades. "Help!" she tried to stand to her feet, but she came to the astounding realization that her legs were gone. Fear bubbling in her throat, she touched the ends of her thighs with trembling fingers. Panic overwhelmed her senses and the world around her started to spin until the purple neon swelled and drifted across her vision. "HELP!" she screamed at the top of her lungs and it felt like they had torn open in her chest. "Please!" she crawled to the wall, reaching her sweaty hands up to touch the cool metal and searched feverishly for some edge or button or crack or switch or anything at all. "Let me out of here!"

There was a moment of deafening silence, and it was as if the four walls themselves absorbed her desperate pleas. Somehow, Raeni believed that she would be heard; that the next beat would be someone answering her calls. And yet, nothing.

Breathing hard through her nostrils, Raeni settled down on the floor to curl herself into the tightest ball possible. She was freezing. They must have changed her clothes, and though the new white bodysuit covered her from chin to mid-thigh, she still felt like a bird drenched in ice water.

_When are they gonna let me out of here?_ she thought to herself, hugging her shoulders close. _So cold._

She should have known that it wasn't Keith to begin with. Or perhaps she knew, and chose to ignore it anyways. If it wasn't Keith, then what was she after? What was she risking? What was she _thinking_?

If she hadn't made such a stupid decision. If she hadn't fought with Gage and Erin. If she hadn't touched the comms. If she hadn't let her curiosity get the best of her. If she hadn't been so selfish.

"Quiznak."

_Will I ever be able to see Gage and Erin again?_

* * *

She was beginning to lose track of time.

The vargas started passing by, and despite her repeated attempts of cries, demands, and screams, she went unheard every time. Eventually, she gave up yelling, and resorted to what she knew best: fighting.

With the little energy she had, Raeni found herself smashing her shoulders against the walls, slamming her fists to the cold. Without her legs, though, her blows were merely kisses. Further, the metal was heavily fortified. With every punch it received, the wall punched back with twice the force. It was doubly painful, like it was built with the expectation that its prisoner would try and break out. But what Raeni was most curious about was the lining between the metal plating; she'd seen it before. The patterning, the angles at which they curved and deviated, it all seemed so… and yet the source of her recollection escaped her.

"Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…" she counted the plates over and over and over from a corner in the cell. Forty-two lines. Twelve ninety-degree angles. Seven lights. Forty-one knuckle-crushing-metal plates. Zero windows. Zero doors.

Her eyelids moved slowly now, and it was painful to breathe in the chilly air. Her lungs started to ache, and her nose and fingers grew numb. For a moment, Raeni was almost relieved that she had no legs to feel the cold. She huddled herself into the walls as best she could, but they were cold too.

_Am I going to die here?_

Raeni tugged her arms deeper into the sleeves of her bodysuit. It was a slight comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. She swore her eyelids were made of marble. Even trying to keep them open was too exhausting. She stopped trying.

* * *

Sleep greeted and departed again and again. Every time she felt herself doze off, she would jerk awake from the cold. At some point, she could no longer tell whether she was sleeping or waking, whether it was night or day, whether she had been in that cell for vargas, quintants, or movements. She was too tired to hate the grayness of her senses. Rather, thoughts of her warm, blissful childhood on her moon danced before her eyes: Erin building little robot friends for her desk, Gage letting her adjust the weights on his gym tech, eating lasagna in the copilot seat of their only pod, stargazing on the roof. She remembered tinkering with a toy car, taking it apart and putting it back together over and over until she could do so within five dobashes.

A door must have opened, because Raeni hazily watched light pool into the middle of the cell's floor. Two people walked in, and though she strained to listen, Raeni couldn't understand through the thickness that swelled in her ears. Another entered, and this person was different from the others. They kneeled down before her. Raeni couldn't move her head down to see, but she felt her hands held gently between theirs.

"Hey, what's your name?"

The words bounced around in Raeni's head. It took her a few ticks. "... Raeni."

"Aw, what a pretty name! My name is Ezor. It's nice to meet you!" The voice was soft but laced with cheer and energy. If Raeni could smile, she would have. "Do you know where you are, Raeni?"

"No… where am I?" it ached her neck to do so, but she looked up at the kind person speaking to her. She was beautiful, with red-orange skin, bright blue eyes, and a sugared smile that was just an inch too wide to be true.

"You're on a Galra warship. Don't look so down, you've been saved, after all."

* * *

It wasn't long before Raeni was escorted out of the room, given a warm blanket, and a hot drink that was sweet and sour on her tongue. "Poor girl," Ezor had said, "you must've been freezing in there, and for four quintants, too." Raeni was brought to another room. It was warm. It had a soft bed in one corner and a wardrobe in another. But what Raeni eyed first was in the middle of the room.

"Are those…" she mumbled from her wheelchair.

"They sure are," said Ezor, who pushed the wheelchair slowly into the room, "we were working on them from the moment you got here."

Raeni reached out to touch the pair of bionic legs that stood on the floor. They were like nothing she'd ever seen before. Silky gray metal folded over pistons and heat dispersers, a tungsten core, titanium shielding, and an expertly crafted exoskeleton with propulsion control and impact buffers. The soft white lights blinked in response to her fingertips.

"Yeah, something about 'agonist-antagonist muscle dynamics,' or whatever," Ezor said. "Wanna try them on?"

Raeni said nothing, but pulled the right leg down to her thigh. "Integrate," she croaked. Ezor mumbled something along the lines of 'you don't need to say that', but Raeni was drowning in a power too strong to make her care. The wetware interfaced seamlessly with her body; she could tell from the instant sensations in her toes and her heel and her ankle and her knee. Raeni desperately attached the other leg and clambered onto her feet with newfound energy. A step forward was as gentle as a blink, as smooth and velvety as space itself. She could bend her knees and roll her ankles at an instinct she'd never felt before. It was beyond everything she'd ever known.

"So, what do you think?" Ezor asked as she trotted around Raeni.

After walking and running and jumping in her returned strength, Raeni slowed to a stop near the open door. For a brief moment, she glanced into the hall, but turned back towards Ezor with a smile she couldn't help. "I get to keep them, right?"

"Of course! They were designed for you, after all," the older girl replied. "There's plenty of room for improvement, though. A few tweaks, nothing you can't handle I bet."

Raeni scrunched her brows. "Really?"

"Yeah," Ezor grinned, "I think a lot of people on this ship would like to get to know you first, though. You're famous around here."

"I… how?"

She giggled. "I'll show you around, and you'll find out soon enough."

Despite the alarms going off in Raeni's head, she followed Ezor out the door.

Ezor toured Raeni through the halls of the warship, and the latter couldn't help but feel that she had seen it all before, probably in some textbook she read. The hangar, the flight deck, the bunkers—Raeni couldn't shake the strange feeling in her stomach.

"And what would your name be, young lady?" one Galran officer asked her. He was the biggest person she'd ever seen, standing at least eight feet tall and about a foot taller than Gage. His yellow eyes were set sternly into his skin, but he adorned a soft expression on his hard features. It was confusing.

"It's Raeni, sir," she said with the straightest back she could muster.

"You're already quite the soldier, aren't you? A fine addition to the fleet, indeed." _Addition to the fleet?_ "May you flourish here, Raeni," the officer saluted her, "_Vrepit sa._" She shuddered at the words.

"Thank you, sir," she announced before turning to walk with Ezor again.

Raeni heard mumbles echo around her as they continued down the halls. The walls seemed to get smaller and tighter.

"Look! She's all grown up."

"A frail little thing, isn't she?"

"What are they thinking?"

"... disappeared for three years."

"Wonder how they even found her."

Raeni tried to keep her head low and her eyes on the motion of her legs.

It wasn't long until they arrived at a massive door, beyond which was an enormous room, large enough to squeeze in at least twenty of the mech shops back on her moon. Instead of metal walls, the majority of the room was a single, curving window, and through the glass, Raeni could see the stars moving slowly past the ship. Somehow, she forgot that there were many, many more stars than the constellations she was used to. It was awe-inspiring.

Raeni must have been quite literally staring off into space, since Ezor nudged her in the side to refocus on the center of the room. They walked down a long, long isle, where the end of it crawled up towards a colossal chair, backed by a tall beam of purple light and framed with metal spikes. Gage, Erin, and herself could have easily fit on that single seat.

"Huh, looks like he isn't here," Ezor said while scanning the room.

"That's because you were supposed to escort her to the bridge, Ezor," another voice called out from behind them. Raeni turned to see a monolith of a woman, donned in the same black and blue armor Ezor had. Her hair was dark with pink undertones, and the line of her mouth was crooked in disappointment.

Ezor blinked before gasping in realization. "Oh, quiznak!" she slapped a palm to her forehead. "I forgot that the scheduling changed."

"Acxa and Narti are waiting for us," she turned to Raeni. "My name is Zethrid, and you are?"

"Raeni, ma'am."

"Might I ask what happened to your legs?"

_Alright, then._ "I don't actually remember."

Zethrid paused for a moment, as though she would be able to remember instead. "Interesting."

"Zethrid, don't be so forward!" Ezor scolded. "Geez, why you gotta be so—"

"No it's alright!" Raeni cut in. "Don't worry," she hesitated, "you can ask me anything."

Ezor sighed before resting her hands on her hips. "We should be getting to the bridge. Don't want to be late to meet the big man."

"Of course," Zethrid gestured to the door. "After you, Raeni."

* * *

Raeni came to the hurdling realization that the term 'bridge' was traditionally a nautical term on Earth, at least from what she has read. She had forgotten that warships like this one, built for space, have a bridge to control ship maneuvers, navigation courses, battle tactics and weapons systems. The bridge of this ship had about ten seats arranged in an angular semi-circle, with one larger seat towards its rear. Each seat was occupied by a Galra soldier, and though they spoke to each other at times, it was brief, and the room stayed mostly quiet. As Raeni stepped further into the room with Ezor and Zethrid, she watched as two more half-Galran soldiers walked up the stairs to meet them. One had short blue hair and a piercing glare, and the other was—

"You," all the strength in Raeni's legs suddenly gave way, "it was you." She wanted to yell at the more lizard-like Galra, but she withheld her anger and fear. "What happened to Gage and Erin? What did you—"

Ezor grabbed her forearm to keep her from marching forward. "They're fine," she insisted. "Now, this is Narti, and the scary one is Acxa."

But Raeni wasn't satisfied. "You _tricked_ me," she hissed at the soldier, who regarded her with a blank expression. "You grabbed me by the neck and lifted me into the air and knocked me over the head. You took me away from my home."

"You're misunderstanding our actions," Acxa said simply.

"Listen, Raeni," Ezor grabbed her shoulders to face her. "You've been _saved_."

Raeni breathed hard through her nostrils. "You've said that already, and from what, exactly?"

"From the people who want to destroy the universe, obviously."

_What?_

Acxa sighed. "The Galra empire was built to bring order to the chaos of the universe. The people need a leader to guide them on the right path," she narrowed her eyes, "Rebel fighters who would rather have the universe thrown into anarchy have been on the rise for thousands of years, and have only been growing stronger in more and more quadrants."

"Did you ever learn the true origins of your foster parents?" Zethrid asked.

"They," Raeni started, but scrunched her brows as she tried to recall her conversation with Keith. _"A gang of over thirty members, but it was only those two that got caught for… whatever it was that they were doing."_

_A gang? A gang of… this can't be possible._

"They kept you in the dark, that's what they did," Zethrid announced.

"All you have to know is that you're in the right hands, now," Acxa reassured. "The Galra are fighting for peace, and you can be a part of that fight, as well."

"And if I don't want to?"

"Why wouldn't you?" Ezor interrupted, gesturing to Raeni's legs. "Here, you'll see that all of your needs are met and exceed your expectations. You have every single resource the universe has to offer for all your work, whether it's engineering your legs, designing weapons, quiznak you can pilot a warship, if you want," she laughed.

"We've been monitoring you for a long time, Raeni. We think you'd make an excellent fighter for the Galra cause, through your intelligence and your individual strength," said Acxa. "Also, Narti would like to apologize for the way she treated you back at your home. She says that it was unfair of her to deceive you so cruelly, but it was a necessary evil."

Raeni watched as Narti reached out her forearm, and after looking at it for a few ticks, she took it with her own. Though she didn't speak, Raeni could feel the message she wanted to convey through her grip. _I'm sorry, but stay._

It felt as though her entire life was being rewritten in a matter of dobashes.

"_Get your facts straight. Everything is facts. Everything is mathematically plain. You know this, but you have forgotten, and you did not ask."_

She must've been staring at her legs for too long, because Zethrid placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "We understand that this is a lot to process, so we don't expect an answer from you yet. It is ultimately your choice of whether you want to stay here or return to your home moon. However, do keep in mind that your decision can have two very different results: one with an empire standing with you, or another with an empire standing against you. Which result you get, however, is up to you."

Raeni heard Acxa and Ezor speaking aside in hushed voices. "Where is he?" asked Ezor. "He had to leave, some urgent call from another base," said Acxa. "Quiznak," Ezor cursed, more to herself than anybody else, "he was supposed to take over from here. What do we do with her?" she remarked.

"Well, Raeni, the ball's in your court, for the time being," said Zethrid. "What would you like to do?"

No-brainer. "I want to test out my legs."

* * *

Every part of the ship seemed to get bigger and bigger the more Raeni explored it. The training deck was particularly massive, with enough balconies to make it seem like an arena. Like the rest of the ship, it was heavily plated in metal but had stronger, brighter purple lighting. It was a huge amount of clean space compared to the rough surface of her moon.

"This is it—you can come here anytime you want," said Ezor. "The whole place is yours, anyways."

Raeni must've heard her wrong. "Sorry, what?"

"The training deck—it's _yours_."

_These people are nuts,_ Raeni thought to herself. _Sure, there are probably many training decks on this big of a warship, but a whole training deck all to myself?_

"What, you don't want it?" Acxa asked.

"No, I do, ma'am," Raeni affirmed.

"Then what are you waiting for? Knock yourself out, kid," said Zethrid as she gestured into the room.

Trying to understand what was going on was taking too much of her energy. Training, on the other hand—that was something she could do.

Raeni began training her new legs out the way she always did. A lap of walking, another lap of running, and a full sprint from one end of the deck to the other. The legs propelled her like she was walking on an electric gel, and the layers of compound armour and honeycomb framing provided a support and strength that allowed her to move farther and faster than she's ever moved before. But this was just the preface.

Ezor had mentioned something about gravity inducers, so as she was running, Raeni reached down to tap a spot on her right thigh towards the side of her knee. A soft _beep_ confirmed the request, and suddenly Raeni felt the slightest stretch in time between the moments her feet touched and left the ground. Finding her spirit, she ran directly towards one of the walls, and with one leap she nailed her right foot into the wall, and then her left foot, and then her right foot, and up the wall she climbed, bouncing and laughing. Without a moment's hesitation, Raeni stepped onto the ceiling of the deck and walked into its center, chuckling with glee as her hair drooped down towards the ground.

"Enjoying yourself?" Ezor exclaimed from below.

"What do you think?" Raeni yelled back with a broad smile. With a bit of faith, she cranked her knees down, and with a single push, she sprung off the ceiling, spinning tight somersaults in the air. The ground came at her hard and fast, but after tapping the gravity inducers off, the impact dispersers in her ankles and shins automatically cushioned the fall to a fall on pillows. Grinning widely now, Raeni shot to her feet again, springing off her new legs from wall to wall and corner to corner, fingers gently sweeping at the metal as she flew. It was an unimaginable feeling, and it was all hers.

"Raeni, come down here!" Zethrid called. Raeni obeyed, and jumped down to the soldiers from her place hanging off a balcony. Narti held something out to her.

"A rod?"

"A _training_ rod," Acxa clarified. "Now that you've gotten used to the legs, lets see how you fare in combat."

Before Raeni could protest, she whipped around to see a sentry, clad in armor and a rod like hers, standing eerily still in the middle of the deck floor. "You want me to fight that thing?" she asked incredulously.

"Obviously," Ezor quipped. "Now go get 'em!"

"Or it's gonna get you," Zethrid added.

Raeni turned to see the sentry charging towards her at full speed. Yelping, Raeni dodged the strike of its rod and tumbled towards the side of the room, her own rod clanging against the ground and out of her reach. Shoulder aching, she pressed herself onto her knees, and watched as the sentry marched towards her, spinning the rod in wide circles with its mechanical hands. Grunting, she clambered to her feet, picking up her rod with the motion. She began a slow jog around the room, trying to get a feel for the way the sentry moved and behaved. It turned to her and kept marching, and when Raeni approached, it picked up speed. _Lazy from afar, stings hard up close._ She grinned. _Fun_.

Another feature of her new legs was touch thrusts, where every time her foot hit the floor, they were gently propelled just a little further via air expulsion. A small adjustment with big, big impact. Raeni swiped the left length of her thigh, and started running towards the sentry with increasing speed and force. Jumping into the air, she slammed her end of the rod down, only for it to cross with the sentry's—a blow that dealt more damage to her own shoulders than anything else. She was facing a _full_ robot, after all.

Clocking her knees in, she briefly balanced on the sentry's rod, then pushed herself off and onto the ground, her rod whipping out but in her tight grip. She quickly took advantage of the sentry's difficulty in regaining its footing, and lunged her rod directly into the small of its back, sending it toppling forward to the ground. Her smile of triumph quickly faded, though, as the sentry stood up as though it had merely tripped.

It came at her fast, and Raeni thrust her arms out to hold a defensive position with her rod. She blocked blow after blow, each coming an inch too close for comfort. Ducking and twisting and dodging, she scurried under the sentry's arm, but at her dismay, felt her ankle catch between metal fingers. Horrified, Raeni felt herself being lifted off the ground by her foot until her head left the cool floor. Then, before she could even blink, she felt herself swung and thrown hard across the floor, tumbling and bumbling like a shoe down a hill. Raeni gasped for her life, trying to knock the air back into her chest. Groaning loudly in pain, she forced herself onto her side, blurry vision struggling to focus on the marching sentry.

She looked past the sentry, and saw Ezor, Acxa, Zethrid, and Narti watching her intently. They made no move to help her, and yet, their expressions… it wasn't fear or mockery or disdain, it was…

_Strength?_

Vision focusing, heart pumping, Raeni sat up, the sentry nearing with every passing tick. Slowly, she stood up, knees shaking beneath her. She looked at the length of her rod. It was supposed to resemble a weapon, something to use in combat in order to win. The use of weapons was against the rules when she wrestled with Gage and Erin. It was about using the brauns you had, not what you held.

"_Remember, Raeni: _you _are the weapon_."

_You know what? Screw it_.

Raeni tossed the rod to the side of the room, and stood in wait of her opponent. It felt as though her heart was going to burst, out of anticipation, excitement, terror, and absolute power. Screaming, more to herself than to anyone else, she burst towards the sentry, predicting and evading the rod's thrust, and slamming her right leg directly into its belly with an inconceivable force. The robot flew through the air, forcing Narti and Zethrid to jump out of its way, and smacked into the wall of the training deck. It instantly crushed the metal into shards from the impact, and once the smoke cleared, cracks and bubbles appeared to be continuously, helplessly erupting from the wall's surface.

Panting harder than she's ever before, Raeni watched as the sentry peeled off the wall and fell to a staticy mess of metal and armor on the ground. Her nose was running, and the sweat dripped through her bodysuit and down her disheveled, silver hair and soaked her scalp, and yet she had never felt so powerfully alive.

The Galrans looked at her from the distance, Ezor adorning a cheery smile while saluting her. Raeni felt her lips stretch with pride, and returned the salute.

* * *

**Hmmm... :)**

**Sorry friends, if you came here for the usual 'new female Paladin' trope, ya best be taking a pause for a bit. Raeni wants to have some _fun_.**

**I know that this was so, so long in the works, but school really got the best of me. But I can't stop thinking about this story, so we're going to keep going. I have a lot of time on my hands, so lets kIcK iT iNtO oVeRdrIVEe.**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for sticking it through with me :') All your reviews, follows and faves are so appreciated!**

**There's so much going on in the world right now, so I hope you guys are taking the time to reflect and be kind to yourselves as well during this time. Stay safe :))**

**~AVA**

Review responses:

GrimmaulDee: thank you so much!

Guest 1: Thanks! Trying to vary my writing style hehe

Guest 2: hehe she certainly is, ty!

Guest 3: hope this chapter answered some questions :)

Guest 4: thank you soso much! will update asap again

Shiranai Atsune: aww thank you so much for sticking with the story! i hope you continue to enjoy this :)


	9. KEITH-007

**HECK. THIS TOOK ME SO LONG. It ain't even that long, sorry I ran out of lemons. Be prepared for that Voltron _salt_.**

**Enjoy :))**

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-007

KEITH

It's been a whole month since Keith had last been in the Castle of Lions. Returning to it now, he realized he had forgotten the subliminal size of the ship itself. It's shadow loomed over the canopy of his pod (which he triple-checked for malfunctions, anomalies, or failures of any sort), reminding him to open his comms to Coran.

"This is Keith, requesting permission to land in the Castle of Lions," he said as he had many times before.

"This is Coran of the Castle of Lions, uh, permission granted, you are cleared for landing," Coran's chirpy voice rang back through the comms. "It's good to hear from you, Keith," he added, against the landing protocols.

Keith felt his stomach drop. _Not for long_.

* * *

"Keith!" Pidge exclaimed from her chair on the bridge.

"We haven't seen you in forever, dude," Hunk smiled behind a digital dashboard, swiping left and right and across the screen while waving enthusiastically.

Allura and Shiro called him over to the holodisplay at the center, where a 3D diagram of the Urippa system was mapped out in blue and green stars and planets. After being with the Blades for an extended period of time, the brightness of the room almost pained his eyes, and it was difficult for him to read the data properly.

Shiro reached out a hand to him. "It's good to see you, Keith. You're looking well," he said, and Keith took his hand with a smile. He realized that it was probably only the second time that the team had seen him in his Blade's uniform. It felt strange to wear it in this room.

"We've missed you," Allura grinned.

"Thank you, guys," said Keith. "I'm glad that everything's going well over here."

"Well," Allura made a face, "we've been arranging some Voltron appearances in different parts of the Urippa system," Keith knew what was coming next, "so we're going to need all of the Paladins at the ready for multiple show-of-arms events. Thankfully, you came back at just the right time."

"It's about time!" Keith turned to the sound of Lance's annoyance. "Flyovers are not as easy to choreograph as I thought," he said, throwing what appeared to be a notebook with flying formations and aerobatics movements including tough-and-gos, tight turns, high-speed passes, barrel rolls, and Cuban-8's. "We _need_ all five Paladins."

Keith looked to Shiro with a raised brow. "Flyovers? Like the ones from the Garrison?"

"Exactly, and it's an excellent way of promoting Voltron's profile."

"Isn't that war propaganda?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"We're going to need all the help we can get," Allura interrupted. "By inspiring new rebel forces in as many systems and quadrants as possible, we will be able to lead our first full attack on the Galra Empire in the coming phoebs."

Coran stepped in. "That's right," he said, "These are military tactics that have been used across the universe, and are particularly powerful in moving the masses and encouraging different societies and peoples to join the Voltron cause. Strength in numbers!"

"Yeah, and with the blitz that we'll be bringing," Lance said with a cheer, "they'll be rushing in for front-row seats!"

"It's not a concert, Lance," Pidge called over.

"Same difference."

_Nothing has changed, here_, Keith thought to himself, as he watched Pidge, Hunk, and Lance bicker about whether concerts were a form of stardom propaganda.

Shiro must have noticed him staring off, and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "The Blade of Marmora has been a big help to us these past few months. Their intel is one of the most influential factors in the battles we choose. We wouldn't be where we are now without them."

This was true. The Blades, beyond their own rebel movements, have helped Voltron gain access to Galra war plans, trade routes, and stronghold locations, at the minimum. Kolivan and the other teams within the Blade of Marmora have been working to make themselves known throughout the quadrants for their work, which was a risk all on its own. For all these sacrifices of secrecy that the Blades were making, however, most people would rather see Voltron rather than Galrans, rebels or not. Keith still couldn't get over the glares of suspicion and distaste that they'd received, even from those who were just freed from Zarkon's rule by the blood and sweat of the Blades themselves.

"Yes," Allura chimed, "and with Voltron, the Blades, and other allied forces working side by side, we will most certainly be able to defeat Zarkon once and for all."

Hunk looked over his shoulder, an Altean hard candy in his mouth warping his voice, "Keith," he shifted the candy, "you mentioned in your transmission a few hours ago that you needed to talk about something. What is it?"

Palms sweating, Keith shook his head. "No, it's," he paused, "it's good to be back." The words slipped out before he could stop them.

* * *

The next day, the team planned to intercept a Galra reinforcements ship that was scheduled to arrive on planet Ithraq to replace the Galra soldiers that Voltron had already eliminated from there. As per the information from Kolivan and Keith, the reinforcements involved not only soldiers and sentries, but newly designed weapons to control, manipulate, and massacre the planet's inhabitants. They were the first of their kind, and the Ithraqi were going to be the test subjects.

Even after completing several successful missions in the Black Lion, Keith somehow was offput while piloting the craft this time around. As he flew alongside the other lions, on route towards the Galra ship, he found that his grip on the throttle and brakes was somehow foreign in his fingers. The seat was too low. The dials were too bright. _It's been a whole month_, he thought, _I'm just not used to it._

"So, Keith," Pidge called over the comms, "how have your missions with the Blades been going?"

"They're going well," he responded, more sullenly than he'd wished. "I've been doing a lot of scouting missions for Galra activity in some nearby systems."

"Spoken like a rookie!" Lance guffawed through the speaker.

"Oh, lay off it, Lance," Hunk whined.

"Did you observe a lot of Galra activity in those systems?" Allura asked.

"No," Keith said quietly, "there was—"

His sentence was cut short by a sharp blast to his lion. Alarms blared around him, and he jerked the controls to keep himself from swinging into the Green Lion from the impact. The craft dipped and rolled, and Keith felt his stomach turn with each movement. When the lion finally stabilized, he looked out through the shielding to see several Galra fighters rushing towards them at full speed, defending the cargo ship just a few miles away.

"Scatter!" Keith commanded, and the lions dispersed in different directions, fighters following suite. Flying by instinct alone, Keith led two away, dodging the space rubble of the ensuing battle. He watched his radar carefully, and once they were just about to close in on them, he banked right and allowed them to flash past him. Unable to turn in time, the fighters continued straight, while Keith took the opportunity to force the throttles forward, locking onto his targets, and firing lasers. The Galra crafts burst into balls of flames and smoke, hurtling into the surrounding space. _Are they… faster than usual?_

Breathing a sigh of relief, Keith wiped the sweat off his nose with the back of his hand, and turned to see the other lions shaking off their own tailgaters.

"Hunk, I'm gonna need your help over here!" Pidge exclaimed, as she swerved this way and that to evade a heavy barrage of artillery fire.

"Roger that!" Hunk replied, before kicking off the remnants of three fighters to launch towards the Green Lion's location. For a moment, the Yellow Lion curled into a ball before thrusting its legs out and forming its massive shoulder cannon, and delivering a powerful, heavy stream of energy that destroyed at least four enemy crafts behind Green. It spun in a circle, sprouting a ring of orange and white mushrooms across the battle theatre. "Man, these things are always—so—annoying!" he echoed every explosion.

"Tell me about it!" Lance declared as he blasted several fighters, cutting their wings like knives. "Is it just me, or did these guys get a speed boost?" he dodged some shots, but the end of Red's tail didn't escape a laser's zap. "Even Red's not fast enough!"

"I think you're right, Lance!" said Allura, who dove and dipped around a string of fighters. Despite her precise lead pursuit manoeuvring, she missed each target by a breath's edge. "I can't get a good shot!"

Keith grimaced. "We have to keep going!" he said over the comms. "Only a few fighters left, and we can destroy the cargo ship after!"

After clearing the rest of the fighters, the team made their way towards their main target. It was only after the first battle that Keith realized he was flying at an angle the entire time, pointed out to him by Lance. He bumped into Hunk twice already, and he couldn't manage to go full throttle when he wanted to. It was getting difficult to keep up with the others.

"Here's the plan," said Keith. "Lance, you take out the starboard cannons. Allura, you'll take out the portside's. Hunk and Pidge, on me for formation."

"You got it!" Lance chirped.

"Moving in!" Allura confirmed.

Keith glanced at his radar, and watched as Pidge and Hunk aligned their lions with his. With a firm grip on the controls, he angled the craft upwards, engine humming gently beneath his feet as he began to climb. From the corner of his eye, he saw Allura and Lance swooping in and out of enemy fire, gradually inching their way closer to the defense cannons for an ideal range of attack. Returning his attention to the ascension, he felt the hum of the engine shift into a restless rattle. Scrunching his brows, Keith looked at the navigation dials on his dashboard: the readings were terrifically off-caliber. Feeling his heart thump harder, he reached towards digital screens, tapping and swiping only to discover that most of his readings were turning out to be wrong.

"You doing okay, Keith?" Pidge asked quizzically.

"You're slowing down," Hunk's nervousness carried through the comms.

"Hunk, what's your bearing relative to the ship?" Keith asked. _It should be the same as mine._

"Uh, 72.1, why?"

Keith's read 41.9.

"Done and done!" said Lance, as he returned enthusiastically with Allura. "Let's do this!" He joined the formation with Allura, and the five lions continued to move synchronously with each other to form Voltron, but Keith was flying blind with his navigations down. He gritted his teeth as the Black Lion shook violently around him, as though it were going to fall apart mid-flight. _Come on, just a little longer_. They were climbing higher and higher and higher… and nothing.

"What the quiznak?" Lance cursed.

"It's not working!" Hunk exclaimed.

"Hold!" Keith ordered, but something in his chest told him he didn't mean it. They continued to climb, but the Black Lion simply grew more unstable, and the consolidation of Voltron was not becoming.

"We can't afford to lose any more power," said Pidge. "We need to split up!"

"Fine!" he groused, "We'll attack the ship separately, everyone give it all you've got!" He said, despite his inability to shake the impalpable feeling that he was doing something absolutely _wrong_.

After aborting the formation, the Black Lion began to relax. It stopped rattling, and the navigations returned to normal. Taking a few deep breaths, Keith narrowed his eyes, and pressed onwards, the engine of the Lion thrumming under his touch. He guided the lion onto the surface of the ship, metal claws snapping at metal as it galloped to gain momentum. Running the anti-ship laser cannon protocols, he pulled the throttles back, leaping into the air, and fired a surge of ion energy that pierced and sliced the side of the ship open. The others joined in, until the ship was veined with blue burns of light.

"Alright, Keith, we need one more nail in the coffin!" Hunk exclaimed.

Burning up in his armor, sweating, and panting, Keith nodded. He soared up and over to the front of the ship, the _vrum_ of the ion cannon powering up and vibrating through the cockpit. For a fraction of a second, Keith thought he was going to make it happen, but the Black Lion was suddenly thrown into a wild fit of agitated shakes and seizures, armored metal clanging together, screeching like a hawk. His scream rang through the comms.

"Keith!" Allura exclaimed, terror in her voice. The lions came rushing to the Black Lion's side, pushing him out of range, barely evading a blast from the cruiser. The shaking continued, and its violence caused bile to rise in Keith's throat. Through the chaos, Keith heard Hunk cry out—"I'll take care of the cruiser!"—in between the frantic comms of his teammates. The Black Lion began moving of its own accord, actively defying each of Keith's panicked jolts on the controls. He grunted as the lion roared with frustration. _What's happening?_

"Keith, control your lion!" Lance exclaimed.

"I got it, I got it!" he defended. "I'm fine, we're fine," he did his best to affirm himself as the lion, on the brink of throwing another fit, slowly settled begrudgingly into submission. He looked down at his radar, and saw that all hostiles had been neutralized. He should have been happy, but.

* * *

By the time they returned to the Castle of Lions, Keith was beyond exhausted. Through all his fighting and training, he had never felt so drained in his life. The Black Lion didn't stop grumbling and growling in its acquiescence, even as they pulled into the hangar. Keith never wanted so badly to get out of the lion and out of his paladin armor.

"Good work, team," Keith managed to say as they made their way through the hangar.

After a few moments, Hunk said "Yeah," and suddenly Keith felt like the route back to his room was double the length. He walked a little faster.

"Keith, hold on," Allura called as she jogged up to meet him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth, but continued his march down the castle's halls.

"Not to me, and not to the Black Lion, either," she said with furrowed brows. Hurried steps splintered her words. Allura's intuition was as sharp as ever.

Keith grunted, gaze fixated on the tips of his boots as he walked._ Is now a good time?_ He thought to himself, but thought twice. _No, not yet._ He froze in his tracks.

"I'm _fine_, and so is the Black Lion," he declared. "It's just been a while since," he said while gesturing to his armor, "you know."

Allura narrowed her eyes, and Keith didn't need to look down to see that her hands were curled into fists. "Whatever it is you're feeling, you can speak with us about it."

"Thank you, Allura," his words were a bit quieter than he'd intended.

* * *

After practically crawling to his room, Keith collapsed on his bed, breathing deeply through his pillow.

He didn't want to think about the recently transpired events. It seemed that no matter his actions or decisions, his leadership failed every time. With even the Black Lion wanting him off its back, he couldn't imagine how the others felt. A month away from the team, and the damage was already beyond the scope of piloting, let alone leading Voltron.

Keith turned to his side, staring at the wall as if it would counsel him.

It wouldn't be long until the rest of the team, and Shiro, would find out what was happening. It was a conversation bound to go badly. Keith was never one to run from his problems, but for reasons unbeknownst to him, this was a conflict he didn't want to sink his teeth into.

A ping from his comms device broke him out of his trance. Turning over to reach it from his bedside stand, he pressed a few buttons, and sat up to answer the call. Kolivan appeared as a hologram above the device, arms crossed in his flickering form. Keith already knew what was coming.

"Have you told them yet?" he asked. The grimness in his voice permeated through the comms.

"No, sir," Keith replied. "I'm waiting for the right time."

"The right time is immediately!" he boomed. "Your next mission begins in two quintants. You cannot afford to idle any longer." Keith looked away, chest aching. "I understand that this is a difficult decision, but you want to be a Blade, and you know what that means. Everything about being a Blade involves sacrifice, and you know in your heart that you've already made your decision.

"You are to tell them tomorrow. If you do not return to HQ by 20:00 vargas, I will assume that you've forsaken the Blade of Marmora, and you will never wield that blade again."

Kolivan's image folded into the device and disappeared, leaving a dejected Keith behind.

Before he even realized it, Keith shot to his feet, letting out an angered growl as he hurled the comms device into the wall with all of his strength. He ground his teeth as the device splattered into tiny metal pieces across the floor.

It was just after that crash that Keith swore he heard scuttering outside of his room. Struck with dizziness, he bolted towards the door as it slid open, shooting a glance up and down what turned out to be empty halls. Heart beating in his throat, he returned to his room, curling his fists and resisting the urge to destroy something else.

He needed to hit the training deck, again.

* * *

He'd lost his appetite.

Slouching at the dinner table, Keith picked at his food with a fork in one hand, and cradled his cheek with the other. Lance and Pidge were talking wildly about an encounter they had on a recent mission, something about a strange creature that followed them around, and eventually had latched onto Lance's back and prevented him from getting back into his lion. Lance still visibly shuddered as Pidge told the story with belly-laughs.

"It was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen," said Lance with the most serious tone he could muster.

"You should've brought him home!" Coran said. "He'd make a wonderful companion for Kaltenecker."

"Kaltenecker deserves better, and you know it."

There was a pause, and then—

"Keith, I know you don't like vegetables, but seriously, you've barely touched your food," Hunk glowered. "Is my new recipe really that bad?"

"No," Keith replied, looking up as a glean of an apology. "I was just thinking about something." Allura peered at him suspiciously from across the table. _Quiznak._

"What is it?" asked Shiro, and when Shiro asked something, it was almost impossible for Keith to refuse to answer him. He sighed, and opened his mouth to answer, but Hunk cut in.

"Something happened on our mission," he blurted out in a hurry. "I'm sorry, I couldn't hold it back any longer," he said, tapping his index fingers together.

"What happened?"

Keith felt his heart start racing again. "My lion—"

"_Shiro's_ lion, you mean."

All heads at the table turned towards Lance. The subsequent silence that encompassed the room was deafening, until Allura stepped in.

"Lance," a warning in her voice.

"What?" he asked, throwing his fork down as it clanged against the plate. It was almost a relief to hear it. "It's not like any of us haven't been thinking about it since the mission."

"Calm down, Lance," Hunk interfered. "We can talk about this later."

"Says the one who started it," he jabbed, and even Keith could feel the pain that scattered across Hunk's features.

"Lance!" Pidge snapped.

Anger spilled from Lance's lips, a foreign, striking sound. "No!" he barked. "Let's talk about this! Keith has been gone for over a month, and he returns only now because, why? Oh, right, he's the quiznaking Black Paladin of Voltron! All that time and distance away from the Black Lion and _us_ and here's the result," he gestured to Keith with a rough hand, "the Black Lion can barely stomach him!

"We weren't able to form Voltron, we almost lost a battle against a measly cruiser and a few fighters, and we almost lost Keith completely. The only reason that Keith's been spending so much time with Blades is because he wants to join them!"

Keith thought his lungs seized. "How did you—" but then he saw Shiro's expression, sunken with pain. He watched as Lance stood up from the table from the corner of his quivering eyes.

"Sounds pretty selfish from the guy who was so insistent on everyone staying together as a team, if you ask me," Lance griped. "And—"

"ENOUGH!" Shiro's voice boomed throughout the room as he slammed a heavy fist on the table. "Sit down, right now." Though stunned, Lance's fury was still curled tight in his fingers. He sat down with a scowl, crossed his arms, and refused to meet anyone's eyes.

Keith's nails were digging painfully into his palms now, on the verge of drawing blood. He wanted to apologize to them for being away for so long. He wanted to talk to them about the immense work that the Blades were doing, and how Voltron would make the perfect teammate. He wanted to explain himself. He wanted to talk to Shiro. But more than anything, Keith desperately wanted to leave.

"Everyone finish up eating. We'll discuss this tomorrow," said Shiro.

An agonizing quiet settled over the table, until Pidge, then Hunk, Shiro, and the rest slowly began eating again. Keith caught a sullen glance from Allura, who ate with slow hands. He turned away. Scratches of utensils on plates burned into Keith's ears as he strained to finish his meal through his nausea.

* * *

Everyone left the table one by one after dinner, each walking to their rooms with looming thoughts. Keith stood up, as well.

"Not you, Keith," Shiro called, effectively cementing Keith in his steps.

He returned to the chair next to Shiro, sitting down, but kept his eyes glued to the white gloss of the table. It was polished to a point that he could see his own reflection. He wanted to smash it.

"How are you doing?" Shiro asked.

Keith frowned at the question, gripping the fabric of his pants. "That's what you're asking me?"

"Yes," he replied. "So, how are the missions going? You've bulked up a bit," he chuckled softly. "Glad to see that the Blades are working you hard."

"I guess," said Keith, gaze still downcast. "Lance is right."

"What do you mean?"

"You should be piloting the Black Lion," Keith said, decisively conflicted about whether that statement made him nervous or relieved. "I'm not meant to lead Voltron."

A beat of silence. "Listen, I know that there's a lot of things going on right now," Shiro said. "The Galra Empire is pushing back just as hard as we are, and we're doing our best to rally people from across the universe to strengthen the cause. They want to rally around Voltron because it's symbolic of a future that they've never known. They're fighting for their families, their homes, their cultures, all to bring down Zarkon and bring back everything that he's stripped away.

"On that note, we have our own battles to fight, too. We're all fighting, one way or another. It can be hard for all us to understand each other's battles from time to time, but that doesn't make them any less valid," Shiro strained his neck to capture Keith's gaze. "I know that the Blade of Marmora means a lot to you, Keith. You believe in them, just as much as you believe in Voltron."

Keith waited for the 'but', yet it never came.

"That's why I want you to continue training with them."

He finally looked up, Shiro's face stern with empathy. "What?"

"You're to return to the Blades' base tomorrow evening, no questions asked."

Keith's tongue gelled in his mouth. "But-but what about the Black Lion? What about Voltron?" he asked with frantic hand gestures. "What about the team?"

"You'll be spending equal amounts of time with Blades as well as Voltron. You need to decide for yourself what you want to commit your time to, and you need to support both sides. You need to be the Black Paladin, and you need to be a Blade, both to the best of your abilities. So, for now, I'm asking you to fight a battle on two fronts," Shiro placed a knowing hand on his shoulder, squeezing assertion into pulsing veins. "Do you think you can handle that?"

_He's giving me a chance_, Keith realized. _A shot._ Emotion surged through his chest, reminiscent of the way he felt back at the Garrison and so many instances beyond that. He smiled as hard as he could without choking on his joy. "Yes, I can."

Shiro nodded, clapping his shoulder with tough affection. "Get some rest."

Just as Keith was leaving the room, he paused. "Shiro? One last thing."

"Shoot."

"You don't remember seeing any other human prisoners on the Galra ship other than the Holts, right?"

"No, why?"

He turned and walked away. "It's nothing."

* * *

**Just some angst, yaknow.**

**I feel like Lance's (and everyone else's) low-key salt towards Keith about not working with Voltron a lot (i.e. S4E1) wasn't fully shown, so here's my take on that sALT. Also, foreshadowing ;)) I got them big plans. ****(Sidenote I just found a fic on Wattpad that literally has a Raeni in it :):):)):):) it was published in 2017 so that means someone beat me to her dAMMIT. itsfineimfine Raeni's still my pride and joy hhhHHHH)**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leave a review about your favourite scene, part, or any critique you may have! Reviews are the highlights of my day :)**

**Thank you for reading!**

**~AVA**


	10. RAENI-008

**I am so sorry, but this took me forever. Hope you're ready for some Keith and Raeni (or just a quick touch on it)**

**PS: I'm currently looking for a beta, so please lmk if you're interested by shooting a PM :) I can offer my beta services in return ehehe. Thank you!**

* * *

**J.U.N.K**

CH-008

RAENI

The ground came at Raeni hard and fast as she was propelled down the corridor. Her shoulder, then back, then spine smacked against the cold metal as she rolled, surging pain up and down her body. Instinctively, her hands shot out to grope desperately for the floor, burning her fingertips from the friction while she skidded to a stop. Groaning, she pressed herself onto her knees. Her neck shivered in its weakness as she raised her head, and she saw her opponent floating towards her with nothing but a cat on her shoulder.

"Gotta get up!" Ezor exclaimed from behind her. "Narti never messes around."

"I can," Raeni scowled in pain, "see that!" She groaned as she pushed through her pain and onto her feet, leaning against the corridor's wall for support.

"Remember what we said about reading the room," Acxa advised.

Panting, Raeni narrowed her eyes, recalling her previous lesson with the generals. She looked up and around her, and all she could see was plain metal walls and floors and ceiling, along with a giant Galran soldier marching towards her with a flicking tail. Nothing here would be of use to her, as far as she could see. She frowned, "Why can't I just attack her?" she said through gritted teeth. "It'd be so much easier."

"That's what you just did, and now look at you," Zethrid deadpanned. "Her quick reflexes and agility keep outdoing you. You need to figure out another strategy."

_Quiznak_, Raeni thought before whining loudly. "This is impossible!"

"No, it's not," said Acxa. "Read the room again. What may seem like nothing can be exactly what you need. Take a deep breath," Raeni obeyed, inhaling and exhaling deeply through her nose, "and use your resourcefulness to win."

"And make it quick. Narti isn't going to wait for you, and neither will any enemy," Ezor quipped.

Raeni sighed, holding her side as she scanned the room. Squinting—though she could see just fine—her gaze trailed down the corridor, past Narti, and up the wall at the hallways' intersection. It would be tight, and she'd have to be quiznaking fast, but it was all she could come up with.

Taking another breath, she began walking slowly towards Narti. She must've looked as stupid as she felt, but the generals didn't say a word; they never did. Their gazes pushed against her back, urging her forward, and Narti approached with equal, unchanging force. Raeni took another step, then another, and with her heart beating fast, she dipped under Narti's left side. Narti, who predicted the move effortlessly, reached to grab one of her legs with her tail, but Raeni saw that coming, too. Before Narti could get a good grip, she frantically swung her hand down to swipe at the touchpad on her thighs, and before she could even process it, Raeni's knees cranked as her ankles flew to meet her tungsten hamstrings. The _ching_ and _swish_ of metal collapsing into metal confirmed it: her feet folded in. Acxa's words from her lessons bounced through her head: "_NAIL IT!_" Jaw tight, Raeni swiped at her thighs again, and a second before she touched the ground, her calves and ankles and feet and toes burst outwards, extending back into the air, and she tumbled across the ground in a painful, but bearable, somersault.

"Feet! On your feet!" she heard Ezor call from behind her, and Raeni scurried to begin clambering into a run. _Eyes ahead,_ she thought,_ ahead_, she said as she fought the want to look back at Narti.

Arms pumping, she ran directly towards the wall, dialing a muscle-memorized pattern into her thigh, and the gravity inducers responded to her command. One step further, and she was glued to the wall, then the ceiling, sweat dripping up her face and blood rushing to her head as she pushed and pushed. It was with a suppressed growl of frustration and excitement that she launched off of the metal to tackle Narti to the ground in a tumbling mess of limbs and armor. Her impressive, if not desperate, attack landed her in a ruefully disadvantageous position, with her right arm crushed beneath Narti's shoulder and her legs barely gripping her waist. It wasn't the first time, so she had to make do. Raeni grappled her opponent as she locked Narti's neck in the crook of her left elbow, yanking her roughly to dislodge her right arm. Narti's tail snapped at her back in an effort to shake her off, but Raeni clenched her teeth and endured the painful whips, channeling that strength to tighten her choke hold. Narti was thrashing beneath her, but Raeni ground her knee into her back, and the joints cracked and creaked and she was winning but then—

"Cleared!" Zethrid's voice snapped her out of it. Raeni looked down to see the flesh of Narti's neck squeezed into wrinkles in her grip, and with her breath held, she dropped Narti's head, only for her forehead to hit the ground with an audible _thud_.

"Oh, quiznak. Sorry," Raeni said in a rush and she quickly scrambled off of Narti's back. Something quiet mumbled in the far corners of her mind. She ignored it.

"Dang," Ezor approached her, "Someone's improved," she teased as she and Zethrid helped Narti to her feet.

"Your line of attack needs some work, and your landing is still a bit rusty," said Zethrid.

Raeni's face must have dimmed, because Acxa spoke up, "But your technique is smooth. Whatever training you've done at home and even prior to that has really paid off." Narti gave a weak thumbs up of approval as Nova licked the scratches on her face.

"Yeah!" Ezor cheered, "You picked up your training a lot faster than we did. Isn't that right, Zethrid?" she gave her friend a mocking smile, the latter of whom turned away with a _hmph_.

"Does that mean I get to go on the mission today?" Raeni said, lips and eyebrows curved into a plea.

Acxa brusquely replied, "No."

She dropped her smile. "But, why?" Raeni complained.

"Because, no."

"You said that I'm doing well, right? I've been training here for over a phoeb, now. Don't you think I'm ready to at least help on a scouting mission?" Raeni begged.

Zethrid sighed. "Raeni, you can't even pilot yet."

"So?"

"So she'll ride with you, Zethrid." Raeni turned to the low and foreign voice. "I'm sure that she'll make an excellent copilot," said the approaching man, seeming to grow bigger with every step. His sharp, forbidding eyes stared her down, and Raeni shrunk into her uniform.

"Prince Lotor," Acxa said, before crossing a fist to her chest with the other soldiers.

_The prince?_ Raeni thought to herself as she regarded his silken white hair and charmed smile. She'd heard a great many things about the prince in the past phoeb, but never had she imagined that he would actually look like one. Though ill, Zarkon and his presence continued to loom through the Galra halls and ranks, but Lotor, with a revolutionary political suave, was beginning to take up more space than his father. The reasons why were beginning to make sense. He even _stood _like a leader.

"Raeni," Ezor said through gritted teeth, eyes moving emphatically to her salute. 'Your manners', she mouthed.

Raeni slapped a clumsy, hard fist to the wrong side of her chest.

"Insolent child," Zethrid muttered shamefully.

"Ah, it's alright," Lotor said with a light chuckle. "Don't let them get to you," he advised.

"I-It's an honor to finally meet you, Prince Lotor," Raeni stuttered, debating whether it would look worse if she actually tried to fix her mistake.

"As to you, Raeni," he replied. "I imagine that we've both heard a great deal about each other. From what I just saw, it appears that the whispers are true about your fighting skills. You must have had a great mentor."

Raeni felt her brow twitch. "Yes, sir. The people who looked after me for the past few years. I learned from them."

"Hm, rebels have a dishonorable fighting technique." For a moment, her heart sank. "No matter, I see that your training has effectively cleaned up your rough edges. We need strong soldiers for the Galra cause and the loyalty of the peoples to our power. Your work begins now," he narrowed his eyes, "You'll be going on the mission today."

"The scouting mission?"

"No, you'll be going with the generals on the Kaptys mission."

She must have heard him wrong. "Huh?"

"She is?" Zethrid echoed.

"Yes," Lotor confirmed. "It's about time the trainee gets some field experience," he turned to Raeni, "wouldn't you agree?"

The beguiling look on Lotor's face did not go unnoticed, but for some vague reasoning, Raeni swept it away in her mind. Her stomach swirled, and she shivered a little, but the bright smile that spread from ear to ear took on a life of its own.

* * *

The cockpit was frigid, but the hefty armor plating her body kept her from freezing over. Though the generals had her train rigorously in the armor for battle conditioning, Raeni shifted and adjusted her standing in attempts to find a comfortable spot beneath the heavy metal and fabric. Her eyes trailed across the dashboard as she stretched her neck from side to side, radars and maps scattered across the digital screens alongside weaponry control panels and flight handling. Soft beeps echoed through her ears as Zethrid focused on flying while inputting coordinates.

"ETA at thirteen dobashes," she said.

"Ahead of schedule?" Ezor asked.

"Yes, since we were able to avoid an asteroid belt that we had factored in before we left," Acxa confirmed.

"Nice!" Ezor cheered. "That means less time till we get to have our fun. Isn't that right, Raeni?"

Raeni, who had been gazing outside, snapped her head to the comms, neck whiplashing with the movement. She yelped and pressed her palm to the pain, but smiled feebly as she peered in towards Zethrid to fit in the video call frame. "Yup!" she managed. "Remind me, what exactly does our guy look like?"

"Oh, you'll know," Ezor said with a giggle.

"Don't expect to be pulling anything heavy-duty," Zethrid said, warning in her voice. "We're going to be handling most of the work. Just try not to get in the way."

Though Raeni opened her mouth to protest, a part of her was ready to stand down. Ezor cut her off. "Now, now, Zethrid. She needs to learn one way or another. No such thing as 'watch and learn' when it comes to taking prisoners."

"You're more than ready," Acxa said through the comms, and though Raeni couldn't put a finger on it, she felt something stir in the depths of her stomach. She straightened her back, and stood firmly in her armor.

It was the longest thirteen dobashes of her life, and her excitement only magnified as they broke through the atmosphere of the planet Unaro. The floor rumbled beneath her feet as the force of entry violently shook the entire craft. A fiery glow surrounded the shielding. Raeni gripped the back of Zethrid's seat to keep from toppling over. Her heart thumped against her ribs, a prisoner beating against the cage, and though her fingers were trembling and her breathing was hitched, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the sight of the ground zooming towards them.

_Was this how it felt when_—

"Initiating landing protocols," Zethrid said before steadying the craft, pulling the throttles back so that Raeni's view of the planet shifted from purple and blue shrubbery to a soft pink sky.

It was her first time in a working aircraft that flew in pure space. The speed and force of a Galra pod was fiercer than she'd ever dreamed of. _As if the launch wasn't scary enough_, she thought glumly to herself. Just the force of the initial hyperdrive had been enough to make her nauseous. "Aren't we going a little fast?" Raeni asked, or mumbled, rather. Her thrill for the mission was beginning to harden into a pit of dread in her stomach as she felt the engines stutter in the descent.

"Nonsense!" Zethrid exclaimed. "Have some guts, soldier!"

"Slow down, Zethrid!" Acxa cried through the comms. "Your speed is forty percent above landing range!"

"_Forty?"_ Raeni's nails dug into the cushioning of the pilot's chair. "Z-Zethrid!"

"This is the Galra way!" she proclaimed. "Victory or—"

"DEATH! I know!" the girl cried, a strange, floaty, terrifying feeling swarming her stomach and filling her lungs. "You're gonna kill us!"

"This is another part of your training!" Zethrid exclaimed through the shrieking alarms. "You need to learn to work _through _your fear, even when you're seconds away from death!"

Sweat dripped down Raeni's brow as panic flared in her chest. Never before had she been placed in such a situation, but somehow the adrenaline charged an old electricity in her nerves. The trees came into view once again as the craft entered a free fall, and in a fit of terror, Raeni's hands leaped from their grip on the chair and onto the throttle levers. She yanked backwards as hard as she could, her elbows digging into Zethrid's armor, and a cry of simultaneous frustration and relief escaped her lips as the canopies below just licked at the belly of the craft. Pink skies engulfed the shielding again as they lurched upwards, and Raeni forced the throttles down in reply, ultimately bringing her and Zethrid to a wobbling but stable cruise above the treeline.

Panting heavily, Raeni glanced down at her hands, gripped tight and taught around the throttles. Her joints almost ached as she peeled her gloved fingers away. Stepping away from the controls, she frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do."

"This ship definitely has some scratches now, thanks to you," Zethrid said with a stiff tongue. "Still, you did well."

"Let's get to it, then!" Ezor quipped. "Hurry up, you two, or we're gonna get first dibs!"

"Ezor!"

* * *

It was Raeni's first time on the ground in an entire phoeb. _No machine hum_, she thought to herself as they walked through the thick of the forest. Silver strands of hair pasted stubbornly to her cheeks, the humidity pulling sweat from her pores and underneath her armor. The dark under armour was sticky on her skin in the airless environment. Her new titanium boots, of her own design, protected the miniscule latches and buttons of her toes. Raeni secretly resented the way they disappeared occasionally in the black mush of the forest floor. Zethrid found herself stuck in it every once in a while, where Narti would have to use her tail to heave the larger soldier out of the mud.

The stun gun in her hands was icy and hard. Though Raeni had completed extensive training with the generals on gun-handling, they believed a real flash gun was unnecessary on her first mission. Her safety was the priority, at least according to Acxa, so she didn't need to worry about protecting herself. Even back on the ship, which Raeni discovered to be one of their most heavily guarded, she was always monitored carefully. The freedom to train, build, study, and _do_ what she wanted was handed to her on a silver platter. Still, she had some restrictions, especially ones that concerned her own well-being.

Her finger danced over the trigger, brows furrowed in thought.

"I can barely breathe out here," said Ezor. "Why is everything so gross, anyways?" The half-Galra dodged a slodgey vine hanging over the path, mouth curving in disgust.

"This is a dying forest," said Acxa. "The organic detritus is decomposing rapidly due to the experiments occurring in that lab," she pointed to what must have been a massively humongous building, since Raeni could faintly make out the shape of an arching dome through the foliage.

"Keep your eyes peeled," Zethrid advised as she cocked her machine gun. "We didn't receive any intel about guards, but you can never be too sure."

"You're just itching to fight," said Ezor, "Don'tcha think, Narti?" Narti nodded with assent.

"We're almost there. Stay close, Raeni," said Acxa as the forest trees began to thin.

Raeni inched in towards the group, eyes scanning the shrubbery as they approached a clearing. Pencils of light began to stream through the brush, and soon, Raeni found herself shielding her eyes with her hand as they stepped into a lighted area. A giant pink forcefield stood before them, large and looming and defending the behemoth of a laboratory inside. The low buzz of electricity filled her ears.

"As expected," Ezor said. "Pretty color, gotta say."

"Focus, Ezor," Acxa scolded.

"Yeah, yeah," Ezor replied with a nonchalant wave of the hand. "Raeni, you got the tech?"

"Yes, ma'am," she said as she reached into her belt pocket. Raeni pulled out a small remote, and with the press of a button, it split in half, a purple digital screen expanding between the two ends. With her thumbs, she entered a few codes, and walked over towards the control panel embedded in the forcefield. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Narti tossed a leaf towards the field, which disintegrated almost instantaneously. Raeni's lip twitched at that.

"It's like a video game controller!" Ezor cooed from over her shoulder as she noticed Raeni's newest creatio. "Neato."

"I know, right?" she said, a smile shining through her teeth. Pride bloomed in her belly, and before Raeni could ramble on about all the features she coded, Acxa cleared her throat, and Raeni knew to turn her attention back to the control panel. She opened the front cover, only to discover a jungle of buttons and latches and lights and wires weaving in and out and among each other. Her pride died as quickly as Narti's leaf. "Oh, quiznak."

"What's wrong?"

"It's just classical security," Raeni muttered. "This thing," she knocked her device into her palm emphatically, "is useless against it. Man, and I worked so hard on it," she whined, scratching her head with frustration.

"In that case," Zethrid said before smashing a heavy fist directly into the flesh of the control panel, sparks and tiny fires erupting from the core.

Raeni jolted at the sudden movement, blinking with disbelief, a grin stitching across her face. A laugh burst out from between her lips, and Ezor joined in, both doubling over in howls and hiccups, "Geez, Acxa," Raeni managed between hearty guffaws, tears welling her eyes, "The look on your face!"

"Zethrid!" Acxa exclaimed. "That wasn't part of the plan!"

"Yeah, well," Zethrid mumbled as the forcefield stuttered, glitching in intermittent flashes. "It kinda worked," she shrugged.

Raeni craned her neck upwards to see the field sputter and disappear completely. "I liked it."

"Me too," Ezor said.

Narti nodded in agreement.

Acxa groaned before pressing fingers to the bridge of her nose. "All of you are insane."

The inside of the laboratory was strangely quiet. Raeni had always pictured labs as busy places, where people scurried from here to there with quick feet and sharp, brief glances. Here, there was nothing but the backdrop of silent, white walls. They clung to these walls, Acxa hushing and guiding them, careful to avoid security cameras. Narti placed the occasional alarm-clip on the wall, ensuring that their presence was hidden as they made their way through the endless white halls.

Acxa peered around the corner of a larger intersection, and judging from her expression, Raeni knew that they'd finally come across something interesting. Acxa turned back, whispering.

"Three guards, armed, guarding a door. Zethrid, Narti, Ezor, you take three of them. I'll take Raeni."

"What?" Raeni protested. "I can manage on my own—" Ezor pressed a finger to her lips, hushing her for whispering too loudly. "It's only three guards, Acxa."

"Next time," Acxa replied with a hesitant smile. "You can get 'em next time. Promise."

Raeni's heart sank. "Fine," she muttered with a pout.

"Let's go," Zethrid affirmed, and in a flurry of armor and feet and charging weapons, they spun the corner directly towards the guards, who were covered head to toe in white hazmat suits. With unforeseen speed, the guards began firing at them instantly. Raeni, acting on instinct of her training—and something she couldn't place—dipped and dodged the ion bullets, and watched wide-eyed as Zethrid sent drills of rapid fire energy beams from her gun. Under Zethrid's cover, Ezor and Narti darted towards two of the guards. With a few roundhouse kicks from Ezor and a powerful swing from Narti's tail, the guards collapsed on the ground in just ticks. _They're so strong._

"Get behind me!" Acxa commanded, snapping Raeni out of her thoughts. Acxa gripped her handgun tight, firing with Zethrid at the last guard, her left arm extended out and protective of Raeni's body. She moved forward, and Raeni moved awkwardly to keep up.

A bubbly gasp escaped from the third guard as it collapsed on the floor with a _thud_. Zethrid laughed triumphantly, and Raeni watched Acxa breathe a long sigh of relief.

"Oh, this is interesting," said Ezor, who was peering at something in the wall.

"Go check it out," Acxa said to a starstruck Raeni. "It's safe, now."

With an obedient nod, Raeni approached, and noticed what Ezor was looking at so curiously. "It's a biometric password," she confirmed, eyeing the pink panel with the outline of a handprint. _Oh._ She looked back at the generals. "I need one of these guys."

"Be prepared. Beyond this door we'll have a few more guards," said Acxa. "We're getting closer to our target."

Wordlessly, Narti yanked the nearest guard to his feet, and dragged him towards the panel. Raeni removed one of the gloves, only to reveal a hand, a shade of warm brown, with scales speckling the knuckles. She must have been staring for a moment, because Ezor tapped her on the shoulder. Raeni lifted the hand to the print, pressing her own palm to the guard's to force the recognition. It was cold under her touch. _They're dead?_ An imperceptible feeling licked at her spine.

The panel flashed green, and the doors slid open. Narti dropped the guard from her grip, kicking him out of the way. Acxa and Zethrid moved to the opposite side of the hall, while Ezor and Narti huddled Raeni into their own corner, preparing for whatever was through those doors. Acxa made a few hand singles: two fingers sliding to her right, _quiet_, two index-thumb taps, _be ready. _Footsteps echoed from beyond the doors, and something beeped quietly and was … rolling?

Raeni watched as a canister, with a red blinking light, slithered out through the door frame and into the air.

"Gas!" Zethrid bellowed, just as curlicues of smoke ribboned and pooled out of the can, quickly filling the small space. The opaque gas was sharp in Raeni's throat, scratching rough coughs out of her lungs. Her palms shot to her lips, sealing away the painful air as best as she could. Narti handed her a cloth, which she pressed closely to her face. Acxa and Zethrid peeked out from behind the doors, firing shots occasionally before hiding once again. Return fire commenced almost immediately. _Four, no, five guards this time_, Raeni thought to herself as she listened carefully to the blitz.

Before Raeni could even blink, Ezor snaked her way through the doors, creeping in and out of the thickness of the gas. Acxa followed suit, tucking her handgun away. The sound of bodies hitting bodies, armor against flesh, galloped through the halls. Narti turned to her, and though there was no expression on her face, Raeni knew what she wanted to say. Begrudgingly, she tucked herself into safety behind the wall, as Narti and Zethrid took off into the clouds, leaving her behind. She stared at the other end of the hall, panting hard through the cloth.

_Is this all I can do?_

Sweat gathered beneath her brow, cold as it dripped onto her lids. She gripped the stun gun tight in her free hand, and though it was just a stun gun, and though her legs weren't real, and though she was just a kid, there was something raw, animalistic, and ancient that sparked her nerve endings like white-hot flames.

Raeni charged through the doors, sizzling eyes locking on the nearest guard. They didn't even see her coming. Knees cranking, she charged at them, and when she was just close enough, she stopped, slammed the ball of her left foot into the ground, and sent a full spinning right heel into the guard's chest. Frame by frame, she watched as they flew, as if struck by a cannon, slamming with a _boom_ into the wall behind the clouds of gas.

"Raeni!" Zethrid exclaimed, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder, the surprise knee-jerking a steady aim directly at Zethrid's cheek. "Woah, woah, it's me!"

Letting out a tense breath, Raeni dropped the gun. "Quiznak, you scared me!"

"Our target is just beyond the next pair of doors. You've gotta make it through and retrieve him!" she yelled through the banging artillery fire.

"You want me to go get him?" Raeni asked incredulously.

"You've received your orders!" she exclaimed, and though Raeni had to screw up her eyes to see it, she wore a toothy grin. "Think you can handle it?"

Without a blink, the girl nodded, and began a sprint towards the end of the hallway. She coughed heavily into the cloth, the gas growing more pungent with every passing second. Ducking the swing of a fist and the brunt of a kick, Raeni's lithe body manoeuvred through the fog. Her skin tingled with anticipation as she listened saw and _felt_ the movement around her, effectively evading the burns of ion bullets and energy bolts that just kissed the backs of her calves and arms.

A guard, white suit splattered in the blood of his comrades, flashed before her, screaming something garbled and unintelligible through his gas mask. He was running towards her, arms outstretched and desperate, and then a profound _buzz_, and then an incoherent curse, and then a sudden collapse on the ground. Stun gun hot in her hands, Raeni stepped over him, swiped for the turbo boosters on her thigh, and pounced further and faster until her hands finally found the heavy steel doors. No time to celebrate, yet.

_Now what?_ Raeni thought, boxer shuffling in place. _Can't kick it open. Can't ask for help yet. Can't hack it in time._

"Quiznak!" she exclaimed, slamming a fist into the steel.

And just like that, the doors slid open.

"What is going on out here?"

* * *

With violence roaring behind her, it was with a strange admiration that Raeni regarded the creature before her. It was tall, somehow, practically her height as it stood on two legs. Four pairs of hands were clasped together, scrutinous eyes staring right back at her with a large beak set in a stern line, as though _it_ was studying _her_; as though _she_ was the oddity.

"Wh-wha—"

"You!" it yelled at her, pointing accusingly with one too many hands for Raeni's comfort. "You are not allowed within these walls! Intruders can only ascertain doom in any reality!" he exclaimed in an accent that Raeni couldn't recognize.

"You—you can't be—" Raeni peered into the room behind him. Experiments lying dead on tables, scattered plans, and blueprints dotted the walls, giant tubes of pink liquid stood in the corner, attached by tubing and piping to the ceiling. It was a massive study lab. But other than the creature yelling at her about realities, the room was empty. That meant only one thing.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" the creature asked, warning in his voice. "You know, nothing good comes about threatening glares in this reality. Trust me, I've done the calculations!"

Scrunching her brows, Raeni decided it would be easier to not try and understand. "Alright, bud, you're coming with me."

"I don't think so!" the creature said, putting up two fists before making a weak jab at Raeni's cheek. Matching her movements to his, she moved swiftly to the left, thrusting her forearms to block and divert his attack before forcing the heel of her palm to the bottom of his beak. She pushed his head back sharply, using the crook of her other elbow to keep him in a deadlock. "Gah, my neck!"

"Give up?" she asked.

His grunts were squeaky. "I suppose," he inhaled, "that giving up is the best case scenario for this reality."

"Good choice," she said, releasing her grip and capturing his wrists, well, two of his wrists, in electromag handcuffs. _I only have one pair of handcuffs, and this guy has eight hands_, she glowered. Didn't the generals know that this guy had eight hands? She caught the prisoner staring at her. "What?"

"You're human."

Raeni's breath hitched. "So?"

"There are no humans this far out in space, at least in this reality," he paused, "well, besides—"

An explosion from the hallway interrupted his sentence. Raeni snapped her gaze back to see Zethrid and Ezor charging towards her, dark armor tarnished red. Her stomach churned at the sight.

"You got him?" Ezor asked breathlessly, wiping her lips with the back of her hand and inadvertently smearing blood across her skin. "Perfect, let's get out of here. This place is gonna blow."

Right on cue, a winding alarm echoed through the halls. "Narti's security clips have a dual-purpose, y'know," said Zethrid, and Ezor made an exploding motion with her fingers.

"Let's _move_!" Acxa bellowed as she fired a few more times at a guard on the ground.

Zethrid grabbed Slav by the waist, swinging him into her arms as they all ran back down the hallway. _Halfway done_, Raeni thought to herself as her legs pumped and pumped beneath her. _Don't screw this up!_ The alarms continued to blare, and Acxa and Ezor effortlessly took down the guards that crossed their path, and everything was going according to plan, until Raeni looked back.

One guard, white suit half-drenched in red, clawed his way across the hallway floor, something flashing bright hot pink in his hand. His legs were broken, no, shattered, probably irreparable. It didn't matter, though. He was as good as dead, anyways. He raised a feeble hand, shaking with desperation and the desire to fulfill what he was meant—what he was _built_ to do—and threw the bomb in their direction.

_It's too close_, Raeni thought, panic rising in her throat. _It's too close!_

Spinning on her heel, she made a full turn, frantically entering turbo-touch commands into her thigh as she ran, heart pounding and threatening to explode in her ribs. Acxa screamed at her from behind, but she didn't care. Every cell, every neuron, every battery in her being centered on _that bomb_ until she was close enough, pouncing towards the grenade, grabbing it off the ground, and throwing it as far as she possibly could into the distance. Before running back towards her team, she looked down at the guard for just a moment, and the image of his broken legs, twisted underneath the white-red vinyl material, seared into her.

Half paralyzed, half desperate to get away from him, Raeni broke out into a frenzied run, speeding down the hallway, towards the light that the generals had already passed through. It was blinding, and she had to force her eyes closed as she tripped over her own feet, scrambling to keep herself balanced for just a few more precious seconds.

She burst out into the open air with a cry of deliverance, embracing the fresh air with open arms as she collapsed on her knees, gloved hands digging through a sea of pebbles and dirt. Not even a moment of relief later, the explosion ripped the laboratory apart, walls bursting and windows shattering as hexamite fires crashed like lightning storms. Through the haze of adrenaline, blurry vision, and the high-pitched ringing in her ears, Raeni could feel Narti yanking her to her feet, though she couldn't even remember being knocked to the ground. Her feet stuck awkwardly in the ground, bow-legged, unable to hold the weakness of her upper body. An echo of pain smarted through her torso, but all Raeni could focus on was the warm, firm, doting hands that helped her into the pod and onto the cockpit's ice-cold floor.

* * *

The burn on her side was pretty nasty. Ezor had performed some emergency first aid, but the pain throbbed as though each second scorched a fresh wound on her skin. Besides, the disappointment in the air was radically more painful in comparison. It was after a long, long silence that Acxa spoke through the comms.

"What you did was foolish."

Raeni held her peace as she sat cross-legged on the floor, white-knuckled hands gripping the bones of her ankles, forcing herself to ignore the pain. She already understood her mistake, and the lecture was spurring a frustration that she'd forgotten about.

"I told you holding her back at the last minute would only bring trou-ble," Ezor said in a sing-song tone.

"It doesn't matter," Zethrid boomed, her voice loud and visceral right in Raeni's ear. "You should've known better, and you made a mistake that would've cost you your life."

A string snapped in Raeni's chest, the way it did just before she left her moon. "That bomb would've cost us _all_ of our lives! I had to get it out of the way," she explained. "And what about the whole 'victory or death' thing, huh?" she cried. "You've been drilling it into me for the past phoeb, so what's the deal now?"

"Stand down, soldier!" Zethrid yelled at her, and Raeni felt herself shrink into the ground.

_Shouldn't have said that_, she thought, before curling up against the wall of the cockpit, hugging her knees close to her chest, resting her chin in the crook between them. Her gaze travelled up to Zethrid, spotting the way she gripped the steering with tight, angry fingers. The general's jaw was clenched, and there was a look on her face that dripped in pain; as though she'd just heard the worst news in the universe.

It was after a few dobashes that Zethrid dozed off, somehow, and Raeni was perfectly pleased to be left to her own devices as they continued at cruising range. Idly, she pulled out the device she made, opening the purple digital screen between her hands. Bar graphs and charts flashed across the screen, and swiping them all away, she opened the miniature game that she programmed. A basic brick breaker game to spend the time. Settling into the wall, she focused her attention on clearing the bricks and destroying enemy spacecrafts.

In the background, she heard the comms go off. "Cruiser α-91 to Kaptys-829, do you copy?" Raeni sighed. Just a check-in; a formality. She spared the incoming radio chatter a glance at the dashboard before returning to her game. _Isn't Zethrid gonna get that?_ Seeing that her pilot was snoring, Raeni groaned, setting the game down and standing to answer the comms. She failed to realize that her comms were hidden from the rest of the generals.

"This is Kaptys-829, reporting in," she said.

"Mission status?" he asked, and something stirred in Raeni's mind, but she couldn't place it.

"Mission successful," Raeni stated, following the protocols that Acxa taught her. "Target acquired, about six casualties total. We'll be bringing the prisoner in for questioning and detainment shortly."

"Nice work." _This voice_, she realized. _Where have I heard it?_ "Return to base and—"

"Wait," she interrupted, knowing it was bold and unprofessional and that she'd probably get scolded for stepping out of line _again_ but, "I-I know your voice."

There was a quiet on the end of the line, and Raeni wrung her fingers together in sudden fear that she'd just made a fool out of herself. Before she could apologize and eat her words, he replied, voice soft and just as unsure as her own. "I know yours, too."

A shot into the black depths of space.

"Keith?"

A shot back.

"Raeni?"

* * *

**OOP**

**Yeah, this is gonna be wild.**

**Okay I've seriously been trying to improve my writing, but this chapter is a trainwreck, and I apologize for that. I will probably come back and edit some stuff, because dang I just busted it out. HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY, thanks so much for reading with me aaaaaaa I truly appreciate every single one of you! please leave a review before you go, it really helps me improve my chapters and how I handle the characters, plot, etc.**

**ALSO, I am currently looking for a beta reader! I'm down to offer my own beta services in general YAHOO!**

**Thank you guys, much love~**

**~ AVA**


	11. GENESIS-FRAG:TWO

**J.U.N.K**

GENESIS-FRAG:TWO

Alpha-HELIUM

The cold was bitter here. Blankets upon blankets of white snow covered the land as far as the eye could see, beyond which only dark forests lined the horizon. The sky was a piercing blue, unclouded, with a bright sun that shone even brighter during the winter. The air was crisp, sharp enough to crystallize your lungs and freeze your heart. In fact, this is what happened to everyone who lived here. It happened to her, too.

"Have you been here this entire time?" a voice asked her.

She didn't respond. It was a familiar voice, one that she loved and hated at the same time. She refused to meet their gaze.

"You shouldn't stand outside for so long. You'll catch a cold."

"I never catch colds."

A chuckle that warmed her heart. Just a little bit.


End file.
